


Winter Wolf

by buckyscrystalqueen



Series: Winter Wolf [1]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-16 00:06:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 48,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16943256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buckyscrystalqueen/pseuds/buckyscrystalqueen





	1. Chapter 1

New York. June 1852 

Your entire life, you had been different and you were only ten years old when you realized that. The day of your tenth birthday, you got angry at a one of your play mates and as you shook with rage, three bone claws ripped through your skin between your knuckles on each hand. You screamed in agony and tried to shake your hands to rid yourself of the pain, only to slice open your right leg with the claws. Your parents watched on in horror as the deep, nearly too the bone gash on your leg healed itself.

“Samual…” Your mother gasped as your claws disappeared back into your hands.

That was the last day you ever saw your family.

——

Georgia. July 1865

It took you a long while to figure out that with your claws, came immortality. It was actually sort of a shock to you. One minute, you were helping out fallen soldiers that had battled in the yard of your husband’s Georgia plantation like just your average house wife and the next, you felt a bullet rip through your chest and send you stumbling back into the side wall of your house.

Blood pooled in your hands as Yankee soldiers came around and extinguished all the confederate wounded and all the free, paid workers on your farm before collecting their men. You gasped wet breaths and closed your tear drenched eyes as they came around to look for any survivors. You could feel yourself getting light headed as the men called out to torch the place and you accepted your fate… until you no longer had to.

You could actually feel the musket ball being forced out of your left lung as the sound of glass breaking around you partially covered the victorious shouts of the Yankees. Breathing became easier with each passing second and you opened your eyes as the men simply turned their backs on your home and left with their wounded on the bare backs of your horses. As the metal ball hit the ground, you glanced down at the bloody hole in your dress with wide eyes. You took an easy, deep breath and forced yourself to your feet.

“Move, (Y/N).” You said to yourself as you stumbled over the feet of a dead soldier. “This is normal. You can think about it later.” As quickly as you could, you dashed into your burning home, grabbed a bag of silver and gold from where it was hidden in the chimney of your fireplace, and ran for your life. Tears and smoke stung your eyes and you almost fell down the stairs to try to get away from the inferno.

“Alright.” You said to yourself as you hid the money in the top of your dress. “Alright, this is just fine.” You shook your head and turned back just in time to watch the second floor of your plantation collapse. “Time to move, (Y/N).” You said to yourself as you ripped your eyes away and grabbed the front of your dress. You wiped away your tears and walked swiftly toward the tree line that surrounded your plantation before breaking into a full blown run. “Time to move on.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

New York. January, 1874

“John! Take a look at this!” A man shouted at his friend as he held out the news paper to show his friend the shocking news in the hospital you were working in. “In England, they’re teaching women how to be doctors now!” 

“Sure because a woman would make fantastic doctors.” John laughed as he took the newspaper from his friend. “They’d be better off in the kitchen where they belong.” You quickly closed your eyes to keep yourself from drawing attention to yourselves before slowly looking over at your co-worker, Mary.

“We’d make better doctors than men.” You commented under your breath as she pinched the bridge of her nose. “At least we listen and can remember what is said for longer than a few moments at a time.” She snorted a laugh and quickly covered her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Men would be lost without women.” She whispered as you glanced up at the two men talking in the waiting room. You nodded in agreement as you looked at the back of the newspaper in their hands. With a small sigh, you promised yourself that when you had run your course age wise of living in New York, you were going to that school in London. 

——

The Battle of the Somme, France. November, 1916

‘I hate being a woman.’ You thought to yourself as you stood on the sidelines of the battle field, waiting for a break in the action so you could do your job as a doctor. ‘If only they really knew what I was capable of…’

“Alright, ladies. Let’s go!” Your commanding officer shouted as the gun fire stopped temporarily. You ran with the rest of the doctors and nurses to begin helping where you could. You continually told yourself not to run too fast as you headed to the farthest man you could find that was missing part of a leg.

“M-m-m-m…”

“I know.” You said as you put pressure on the large wound. “You’re going to be just fine, soldier.” You pulled a tourniquet from your bag and wrapped it around his thigh. You glanced around for a helping hand to get him off the field but the nearest nurse was at least thirty yards away. You cursed yourself for not paying attention as you looked back at the soldier. 

“Alright, let’s get you out of here, soldier.” You said as you pulled the man to a seated position and put his arm around your shoulder. You easily got him to his feet and pretended to drag him off to the side of the battle field despite the fact that you were actually carrying him against your hip. You thought it wasn’t obvious to the people around you, but when you heard someone shout ‘mutant’ in German, you knew you were caught in a time that didn’t see many mutants.

“Stay here!” You shouted as shots began to ring out once again, but now aimed directly at you. You threw the soldier down beside a nurse you were sort of friends with as bullets tore through the skirt of your army issue dress. You growled as something began to boil in your blood and without thinking, you spun toward the other side and let your claws fly.

“Let’s go then!” You screamed as you took off at a full run, dodging bullets, and cannon balls. An inhuman growl ripped from your chest as you grabbed the end of the closest cannon and bent it in half. You heard the Germans scream at you as you plunged your left claws into two soldiers at once straight through both their throats. You roared as you grabbed the bent barrel of the canon and chucked it as hard as you could toward the front line of men.

“Push forward, men!” You heard a British commander scream as if he was right next to you and not across the field. Battle cries rang out across the field as you made quick work of the men on the front line as the second wave of Germans rushed forward. All you saw was red as you let go every ounce of control you kept on your mutation for the past sixty years. You had never felt so free in your life.

“Mutant!” A man with a French accent yelled as he pointed to another canon that was being brought into play. You slid to a stop and quickly ran in that direction. You skid through the dirt and knocked out one of the wooden wheels as you wrapped your hands around the barrel. You ripped it off it’s base and flung it as hard as you could at the approaching troops. Bodies were literally ripped in half from the impact as you clawed through a tree and used it as a battering ram for the rest.

You fought your heart out until there was no more fight to fight. You came to a stop half way between both sides and your breaths came out in pants. You forced yourself to stand a little straighter in your torn, blood and dirt covered dress as you retracted your claws and looked at the men surrounding you. A few bullets made their way out of your skin and fell to the blood soaked ground beneath your feet and you could see the shock and fear on every single face.

“Gentlemen.” You said evenly as you nodded your head once. You walked evenly toward the British side until you got past the last little grouping of men. The moment you did, you took off at a full paced run to figure out how to get back to New York so you could go back into hiding.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brooklyn. 1934.

You managed to keep yourself well hidden in the busy New York city after the events in France. You found a job at a quiet little diner, kept your head down low, and did everything in your power to not draw unwanted attention to the fact that you were a mutant since they were the misunderstood outcasts in the world.

You were walking back to your apartment after your day shift one Wednesday afternoon when you heard someone wheezing and a someone else laughing down an alley beside your building. You glanced over to watch a small, sickly looking man hold his scrawny hands up in fists at another man that was nearly twice his size and height.

“I can…” The smaller boy gasped. “…do this… all day.” He swung his fist wildly at the other guy, who instantly swung back hard and knocked him into the brick wall.

“Hey!” You shouted as you stepped down the alley. “Knock it off!”

“What are you gunna do about it, lady?” The bully laughed as the first boy pushed himself up on shaky legs. You dropped your purse on the ground as you grabbed the bully’s shirt and threw him against the opposite wall.

“Like picking on people half your size?” You asked as you let your right claws pierce through your skin so that they would stop against his throat. “Think you’re a big man?”

“N-no ma’am.” You glared at him as you pressed the sharp points into his skin the slightest bit.

“Apologize.” You growled as you pulled your hand toward you, leaving three small scratches on his neck. 

“Sorry!” He shouted before you threw him down the alley.

“Stay away from here!” You shouted after him as you let your claws retract. You turned toward the other guy and offered him your hand. “You alright?” He nodded as he took your hand with zero hesitation.

“Thanks for that.” He gasped with a nod. “I’m Steve.”

“(Y/N).” Steve nodded as he leaned against the wall and put his hand over his chest while gasping to catch his breath. “Asthma?” He nodded his head again as you upturned a metal trash can and put it beside him for a chair.

“All… my life.”

“In through your nose, out through your mouth.” You said as you grabbed another trash can and your purse and sat down in front of him. “Try to match my breaths.” He nodded his head as you took exaggerated breaths to show him. It took about ten minutes to get his breathing under control and you patched up a cut on his forehead.

“You a nurse?” He asked as he gestured toward your work uniform that could be misconstrued as a candy striper uniform.

“I was a doctor…” You said with a small huff as you sat back on the trashcan and set your purse down beside you. “…but that was another life time ago.” He nodded his head as he looked down at your hands.

“Do they hurt when you do that?” You giggled and nodded as you turned the slightest bit on your makeshift seat and let your claws out to show him.

“They rip through my skin.” You said as you held out your hand so he could see them better. “But they only hurt for that second. I self heal so when they pull back in…” You pulled one of the three back in and pointed to where your skin healed itself. “It stings a bit for a second. But it’s not bad.” He nodded his head as he lifted his hand to touch them before stopping himself. “Go ahead. They’re only sharp at the under edges and the point.”

“Is it bone?” He asked curiously as he touched the one closest to him.

“They are bone. I was born this way. You should feel special.” You said with a smile as you crossed your ankles. “You’re the first person in my whole life, all ninety-two years of it, that has ever seen them up close like this.”

“No way.” Steve said as he looked up at you. “There’s no way you’re that old.”

“It’s true.” You laughed as you made sure that his fingers were out of the way before retracting the other two claws. “I know. I look good for my age.” He nodded in agreement as you searched his blue eyes. “Can you do me a favor though, Steve? Can you keep it to yourself that I’m a mutant?”

“Oh, of course!” He said with a frantic nod of his head. “I won’t tell a soul!” You smiled at him as you went to pick up your bag only for him to jump to his feet and grab it for you.

“Thank you, darlin’.” You took your purse back from him with a smile and took his offered hand. “Stay out of trouble, you hear?”

“I gotta stand up for the little guy, ma’am. Someone’s gotta do it.” You laughed and nodded slowly.

“Well… if you ever need patching up again, I’m in this building here. Third floor, apartment six. And please… call me (Y/N).” He nodded as the two of you reached the opening of the alley.

“Thanks for everything, (Y/N).” You nodded your head and watched as he turned and headed home with the slightest of limps. With a huffed laugh and a small shake of your leg, you turned and headed up to your apartment.

——

“Should’a seen me, (Y/N).” Steve bragged as you patched up a cut on his cheek like you had at least twice a week for the past five years. “I really held my ground this time.”

“What have I told you about fighting in the first place, Stevie? Inhaler, please.” You said as you tapped the inhaler in his hand with your elbow. He used it once before continuing on his bragging.

“The guy said I couldn’t hit him right on the nose. I knocked him right out.” He hissed as you cleaned off a scrape on his elbow next.

“Tough guy.” You giggled as you looked up at him. “What were you even fighting about this time?” You asked as you put a bandage on his arm. He suddenly got really quiet as you looked at the light scrape on his shoulder and deemed it didn’t need a bandage. You looked up at his profile as he looked up at your ceiling, pretending he didn’t hear the question. “Steven, what did you do?” You asked as you sat up straight and moved so you could look him dead in the eye. He sighed loudly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out his military papers.

“He said I couldn’t hack it…”

“Damn it, Stevie.” You said as you looked at the paper with a sigh and shook your head. “What were you thinking?”

“I can’t keep sitting here!” He said loudly. “I can’t…”

“But you have no idea what you’d be getting into! I do! I’ve seen it!” He leaned back in his chair at your outburst and you quickly covered your mouth with a gasp. Both your eyes went wide as he looked for answers you never wanted to give. You closed your eyes for a moment before getting up.

“I lived through not only the first World War… but the Civil War as well.” You walked over to a scrap book you had put together in past years of things from your past. You flipped it open and showed him a photo of your late husband’s burned down plantation home that been for sale for decades. “I watched my home be burned down by Yankee soldiers because I simply helped not only their soldiers but Confederate soldiers as well. I was shot in the chest just for helping.” You flipped through a few personal photographs before coming up to a few newspaper articles in French you found of your fight at Somme. 

“I was a doctor in the first World War. I was outed by helping the British soldiers for being a mutant after trying to single handedly carry a soldier out of harms way. That war I think the total shots I survived was thirty when I was done. People in a war don’t care how pure your heart is. They will kill you. They kill everyone…”

“Then why should I not be the one to not lay my life down on the line, too so that someone else has the chance to survive. You did here.” He jabbed harshly at the photo and your jaw snapped shut as you looked up from the book at his shaking head.“Why shouldn’t I do the same thing?” You shook your head subtly as his point resonated much deeper than even he expected.

“I… shit, I don’t know.” You said as you closed the book slowly. You looked at him with a small smile and sighed. “Damn you, Steve Rogers. Now I have to go sign up for this damn war, too.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’d like to enlist in the United States Army.” You said authoritatively as you stood at the front desk of the recruitment tent at the World’s fair. The man looked up at you instantly and laughed.

“You?” He asked, unbelievingly. “You’re a woman.”

“And?”

“What are you like… five foot four?” You rolled your eyes and forced a fake smile as you looked at the other soldier.

“Five foot six, actually. Hundred and twenty-two pounds if you’re really curious.” The men continued to laugh as the first one shook his head.

“I don’t think so, lady.” He said as he looked back down at his papers. Anger got the better of you and you let your claws out and slammed them down in front of him through his papers and into the desk.

“I want- to join- the Army.” You repeated as you glared at him. “So fill out the fucking papers.”

“Miss…” A new man said as you retracted your claws. You straightened and looked up at a gentleman who called you forward with a wag of his finger. “You can come with me.” You nodded your head and stormed around the table with a huff. He lead you down a make shift hall and into a room with the letters “C.O.S.” on the door.

“My name is Major William Stryker.” He said as he pulled a chair away from his desk and gestured for you to sit down. “I am the covert operations specialist of the US Army.”

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N).” You said as you sat down in the chair as he walked around to his seat. He gave you a tight lipped smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes and folded his hands on the wood in front of you.

“My team and I specialize in working with mutants in the army. Now, Ms. (Y/L/N), before we begin I need to ask you a few questions about your mutation so we can place you with the correct team once we finish the physical.” You nodded in understanding and with a single returning nod, he grabbed a file from one of his drawers. “Can I get you some water or anything before we begin?”

“No, thank you.” You said as you crossed your legs and leaned back in the chair. He flipped open the folder and pulled a pen from the pocket of his uniform shirt. 

“Now, Ms. (Y/L/N), when did you find out about your mutation?” You sat up a little straighter and folded your hands in your lap.

“1852. I was ten years old.” His eyes darted up to you and you simply nodded.

“OK.” He said as he wrote your age down. “And what does your mutation consist of exactly?”

“Strength, speed, and agility well above the average human. Enhanced senses and self healing. I can’t get sick, I assume I’m immortal because I’ve been shot before and my body just rejected the bullets. I easily adapt to any weather conditions and I can literally run for days straight and not get tired. Trust me, I tried it. Oh, and my claws, obviously. I’m also an excellent marksmen and very good at hand to hand combat, all self taught.” He stared at you blankly and you shrugged your shoulder. “That’s all.”

“Well then.” He said as he set his pen down without writing anything down. “I think I know the perfect place to put you. You alright with being right on the front line?” You nodded as what Steve said repeated itself in your head.

“Might as well put someone who can’t die in front of the people who can, right?” He finally gave you an authentic smile as he set the file aside and stood up.

“Welcome to the Army, Ms. (Y/L/N). Let’s get you ready for your physical.”

——

“Is this normal?” You asked as you were brought to what you assumed was a heavily guarded Army base in upstate New York.

“We have to treat mutants separately from regular soldiers… just in case. There was an incident last year where someone who just had super strength didn’t know he was also capable of spitting fire when put under extreme stress…”

“Oh, my.” You gasped as they stopped in front of the building.

“So now we have precautionary measures set in place. After you.” You nodded and got out of the back of the car in front of Major Stryker. You hesitated for only a moment so he could walk in front of you and followed him toward the door. The moment you stepped inside the poorly light building, you heard a faint, unheard to normal ears, blood curdling scream from the bowels of the building.

“Wait…” You said as you took a step back a second too late. The main door slammed shut and you slipped into panic mode.

“Stop her.” Stryker said evenly as your claws came out and you slipped into fight mode. You easily killed half dozen men before your head began to get really fuzzy.

“No, please.” You said as tears welled in your blurry eyes. “Please…”

“Take her to the back.” You heard Stryker say as your knees gave out and brought you to the ground. “She’ll be perfect for the experiment.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“If she survives this, she’ll be the perfect face for HYDRA.” A German voice said as you came to. You let out a muffled groan around whatever was in your mouth and opened your eyes slowly.

“She’s awake.” You heard Stryker say. “Let’s get started.” Tears welled in your eyes and you tried to shake your head when you heard machines rumble to life. You began to panic as you felt your body lowered into an ice cold bath. Through the water, you watched as mechanical arms began to move toward you and you screamed as tears began to pour from your eyes.

“Please!” You begged despite the fact that no one could hear you as you tried unsuccessfully to move away from what you now realized was needles pointed at your face. Within seconds, they drilled into your face and body straight down to your bones.

Heat unlike anything you had every felt before spread from the needles and didn’t fade in time. Your eyes rolled back into your head and you thought your heart was going to beat out of your chest from the excruciating agony. Your long life flashed before your eyes as you screamed bloody murder and prayed to a God you didn’t believe in for the pain to end. You thrashed in the tight restraints as the fire like feeling spread through every inch of your body and didn’t let up until it finally felt like your heart exploded and the pain finally disappeared. 

It only took your heart a few seconds before it lurched in your chest and you easily shot out of the water you had been submerged in. Your claws flew out and you unfortunately hesitated at the glimpse of metal claws where bone should be. You felt a strong burst of high voltage electricity strike you square in the back and you collapsed on the ground and convulsed violently.

“She’s perfect.” Someone said as your sobbing being was picked up off the ground and strapped into a chair. “Get her to phase two. See how fast she can regenerate limbs.”

——

“Yesh', soldat.” A man said as he dropped a sparse tray of food on your jail cell floor. You curled into yourself even more on the dirty, dry blood covered, paper thin mattress on the floor and waited for him to leave. Like he did every day, the man kicked the tray toward you and locked you in your cell once more. Once the door closed, you followed the instructions and ate the pathetic excuse for a meal they provided.

Up until the moment you signed up for the bullshit “Army project”, you had never wanted to actually die before. Sure, you had lived a long life and had done some things in the two wars that you were not entirely proud of… but the months that you had spent at the twisted hands of HYDRA made you beg for death every moment of every day. 

They had taken everything from you; your dignity, your freedom, your sanity… even your left arm because they wanted to see if it would regrow. The supposed upside was, after injecting some kind of blue serum into you to see if that would alter not just enhance your mutation, they replaced your nub a few weeks before with a crudely added metal arm that had your claws put in it as well. And the only thing you had to distract yourself from the pain was a never ending, alternating introduction to speaking Russian, Spanish, or German parts one through what felt like a million and seven on a loop in your cell. 

When you weren’t locked in your cell, you were being tortured in every way imaginable or beaten and told to fight back without your claws. The moment they ripped through your knuckles, you’d get hauled back into the chair for more electrocution while they shouted miscellaneous words at you. You realized quickly that electrocution was their favorite form and it took you less than a month to realize that you were slowly but surely being brainwashed. You could feel the parts of your brain that made you you slipping away faster and faster with every shock and group of trigger words, only to be replaced with a vast nothingness that became the bane of your existence. You became HYDRA’s puppet in a matter of months and no matter how physically strong you were, there wasn’t a damn thing you could do to stop it until you forgot the urge to fight all together.

“Na nogakh, soldat!” A new man shouted as he ripped open your cell door. You wiped off your face as you followed his command, got to your feet, and followed him down a few halls into the large room in the center of the base.

“Stoy zdes’.” He snapped as he pointed to a small platform he wanted you to stand on. With the smallest of nods, you stepped up on to it and stood perfectly, mindlessly still to wait for further instructions. You barely heard ‘move her’ and ‘cryo freeze’ muttered by a man across the room before a large cylinder lowered around you. You gasped at the suddenness and instinctively stuck your metal hand out as the tube locked and filled with a below freezing liquid.

“Please.” You begged on deaf ears once again as a sleepiness you hadn’t felt in weeks washed over you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

November, 1963

You woke up slowly as two people grabbed your upper arms and pulled you down off the platform of the cryo sleep chamber you ‘slept’ in. They didn’t wait for you to gain the ability to walk yourself before they were dragging you across a giant room. You blinked a few times to wake up a bit more and your (Y/E/C) eyes focused on a metal chair.

“No… no!” You said knowing that chair meant excruciating pain; pain you didn’t want. Your claws instantly came out and you fought to stab the men carrying you. Your claws hit the metal armor the two men had on in preparation for your assault. You screamed and your entire body tensed as they dropped you in the chair. The moment they did; however, you instinctively sat up, gripped the arm rests, and didn’t even try to get up.

You continued to scream a little more as two, black, metal electrodes were lowered toward your temples. You stopped screaming to accept the thick mouth guard as a man began to lightly strap you down so you didn’t convulse out of the chair. Tears filled your eyes for a second before the flipped the switch and let a lethal level of electricity flood through your body.

“желание.” (Longing) 

Your whole body lurched violently as someone came over to remove your mouth guard so you wouldn’t accidentally inhale it. Your head throbbed and every muscle in your body twitched as you struggled to catch your breath. 

“ржавый” (Rusted) 

‘I’m coming for you.’ A growled voice said in the back of your head as the monster they were turning you into began to slowly claw it’s way from your subconscious. You growled and shook your head harshly in a vain attempt to make her go away.

“семнадцать” (Seventeen)

As the monster taunted you from the deep recesses of your mind, you tried to focus on your breathing and you had a brief thought that if you were to stop breathing all together, maybe you could stop her from taking over again.

‘Think again, bitch.’ She growled as she made you take a strangled breath.

“рассвет” (Daybreak)

‘Please.’ You begged as the harsh aftershocks rattled your metal bones. There was a deep laugh that seemed to echo in your skull. 

“печь” (Furnace)

‘It’s my turn.’ The demon growled as she began to finally leave your subconscious and take over your consciousness. 

“Девять” (Nine) 

You said one final please before the pain disappeared; before the sane part of you completely dissolved and the creature slipped into your being as if she were getting dressed out of a shower. 

“Доброкачественная” (Benign)

Your head twitched once to the side and your claws finally retracted. You stretched out your fingers as your mind began to wipe itself to a blank slate once more. You took a deep, easy breath and you accepted your fate once again. 

“Возвращение домой” (Homecoming)

A low growl rolled from your chest as a tiny aftershock lurched in your flesh arm, making your claws come out for only a moment as your body tried to reject the beast that had taken residence in your being. 

“один” (One)

Your mind finally registered what you are seeing in front of you as the restraints on your legs and arms were unfastened. 

“грузовой автомобиль” (Freight car)

The corner of your lip twitched and you took a deep breath as you glanced up at the man with the red book in his hands.

“Good morning, soldat.” He said as he closed the book. With one final deep breath, you look forward again.

“Ready to comply.” He handed you a file as you stood up from your chair and a woman ran over to quickly re-braid your waist long hair to keep it out of your face.

“Extermination.” He said as you glanced at the front of the file.

“Confirmed.” You said simply as you walked over to the tray of weapons available to you. Your hands worked mindlessly to load up weapons as your hair was finished by the woman. You were handed a heavy handgun and a single rifle bullet. Without another word, you turned out of the main room to complete your mission.

——

The shot was simple. Almost too simple. The shot was a direct line from the tree line to the street in front of you and enough cover that you could simply blend into the shadows. Not a single person paid any mind to the strange woman that was standing behind a picket fence, no one even seemed to care that you were actually holding your gun against your thigh. They were all more fascinated with the man you were about to kill.

As the car slipped into view, you raised your gun. Time felt like it slowed down as your glove covered fingers pulled back the hammer. You took a deep breath as the motorcade pulled past you and a millisecond after someone else pulled a different trigger, sending a bullet through the man’s throat, you sent your bullet through his skull. Your eyes narrowed the slightest bit as you caught the spent casing and you crushed it between your fingers in your annoyance as a third bullet rang out in a five second window.

“Amateur.” You grumbled in Russian as you set the casing on the fence like the file had told you too before turning and walking away. You slid the gun back in the holder on your hip and walked straight into the throngs of screaming people. You got on your stolen bike and took off down the street to get to where your handler was keeping an eye on the small jet to go back to Russia.

As you sat down in the pilot seat and started up the jet, the shred of humanity that always showed it’s face after a mission shed a single, silent tear. You lifted the jet off the roof of an abandoned warehouse and took off to the northwest toward Russia as John F. Kennedy’s face filed in with the other fourty-nine marks the Winter Wolf had taken out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2014

Wind whipped through your long, braided hair as you raced on a stolen street bike to catch up with the blue sedan your mark was in. You had one task; termination of him and anyone he came in contact with after he was taken. You pulled up up behind the car, leapt easily onto the hood, and ripped the man from the back seat. His bones crunched against the side of a truck and you went to reach for your gun when you were suddenly thrown off the car.

You didn’t feel the pain of your body slamming into the pavement; knowing full well that any injuries you sustained would self heal in minutes. You rolled a few times and slammed your metal fingers into the concrete to stop yourself from sliding any farther. You took a deep breath as your shoulder fit itself back into place and you stared down the car as you stood up.

You could see three occupants inside; one long haired brunette man in the driver seat, a short haired dirty blonde man in the passenger seat, and a red headed woman on his lap. She pointed her gun at you and your eyes darted up to the SUV racing up behind it that contained the rest of your team. When the Russian driver slammed into the back of the sedan, you took a step back to prepare yourself. As the car careened toward you, you leapt onto the hood, slid to the roof, and rendered the car useless by ripping out the steering wheel.

Every move you made was mechanical, like the programed killer you were. There was no thinking as you shot grenades at your marks. There was no mental registration of the two bullets that imbedded themselves in your arm and your shoulder only to be pushed out a few moments later by your body or the one that shattered the glass of your now discarded mask. You felt nothing, thought nothing, did nothing but fight.

You held zero regard for your own life; hell, you held zero regard for anyones life as you battled hand and hand in the street with the short haired blonde with a round shield you had been sent to kill. Each punch was calculated and precise but somehow your opponent was a half second in front of you each time. You relished in pride each time your metal fist connected with his body and did nothing but grunt when his fist or the shield connected with yours. 

You managed to take the shield out of play, but after a particularly strong kick to your stomach, the gloves almost literally came off. Three adamantium claws tore through flesh and metal between the knuckles of both your hands. Your lip curled into a snarl behind your mask as the man simply froze in fear. Without waiting, you raced forward at an inhuman speed and body checked the man into a windowless van.

“Stop!” He shouted as you slammed your claws into the side paneling, missing his face my centimeters. The screech of metal filled the underpass as he fought to hold the claws of your metal hand away from his body. You let out a roar and elbowed him in the face before he threw you back and grabbed his shield from where it was embedded in the back of the van. You each took a couple more hits before he managed to get the edge of his shield between the panels of your arm above your elbow, which made the claws on that hand retract instantly. You suddenly felt a strong pull on your jaw as you were whipped over his shoulder and slammed to the ground. With another growl, your head whipped back to glare at him and you frowned a fraction of an inch at the curious look he was giving you.

“(Y/N)?” He asked as he took a step toward you.

“Who the hell is (Y/N)?”


	2. Chapter 2

You had never, in your entire existence, been as nervous as you were as you stood in the middle of the Smithsonian museum looking at the Captain America exhibit. You kept your head down, your long hair tucked into the collar of your hunter green jacket, and your balled up fists shoved deep into your jacket pockets as you stared blankly at a small photo of you and your little Stevie from 1940. There was another photo of you in World War 1 and a small plaque that said both photos were recovered from the Captain’s personal effects when he went into the ice. 

It didn’t make sense to you; how these photos you didn’t remember taking even existed… or why you recognized this sickly looking boy’s face. Your fingers twitched in your pockets and you fought the urge to reach out and brush your fingertip down his cheek. You forced yourself to turn and walk away so you could see what else you were apparently missing of your life.

Your head spun violently as the Soldier and your sane mind battled for dominance. She was screaming at you for killing what was openly left of HYDRA while you wanted to find out more about why you were on the wall of this exhibit. You didn’t stay long; however, not wanting to be that public long after everything that had happened in Washington D.C. So after a fast walk through, you ducked your head, and left the museum.

Despite wanting answers, you knew you needed to keep moving. You began to co-exist with the beast inside your head to get you out of the country down to Mexico by any means necessary. Stolen bikes and abandoned cars became your best friend but as you traveled and the longer you were out of cryo sleep and away from HYDRA’s control, the more little blips of memories started to come through.

It started as you were eating a cheap meal in some small town diner somewhere in Ohio. You casually stirred your bowl of soup when a glimpse of you serving a meal in a similar bowl. You could remember everything about it, from the black and white saddle shoes that pinched your toes if you wore them for a double shift to the pink, collared, button down dress that had a slight stain on the bottom left side hem. You could see the smiling face of the man in the suit that had ordered his soup and even the smell of the chicken broth that always tasted a little too salty for your liking.

Your spoon clattered to the table and you lurched in your chair as a jolt of electricity raced through your entire body. You jumped to your feet as the entire restaurant looked up at you. You threw some money on the table and ran out of the restaurant to your bike as your hands twitched with programed mental aftershocks. Without looking back, you jumped on your bike and raced away before you could be found.

——

You were in a small store somewhere in Mexico when you ran into your choice. You were crouched down behind a shelve, looking for more of the palm sized notebooks you had found three of so far, when you heard the distinct sound of a gun cocking. 

“Open it.” A man growled in Spanish behind what wounded like a mask. You sighed to yourself as you gave up your search on the notebooks and grabbed two pens. “Hurry up!” You picked up the handles of your full basket, stood up, and peered over the top of the shelves at the older woman that looked absolutely terrified with tears pouring down her cheeks.

‘Don’t do it.’ The monster said as you headed down the aisle while taking off your backpack. You set it and the basket at the end of the aisle before silently walking up behind the robber. You quickly grabbed the back of his neck with your covered, metal hand and easily yanked the gun from his hand with your flesh hand. You slammed him down on the counter and bent his arm back behind his back.

“Drop it.” You growled as you tightened your grip on his wrist so he would be forced to let the gun go. He lasted a few moments before his fingers finally loosened and the gun fell to the ground. “Now apologize.”

“What? Hell no! ALRIGHT!” He screamed as you twisted his arm tighter. “I’m sorry, OK?” With a nod of approval, you lifted him up off the counter only to slam him right back down and knock him out.

“You alright, ma’am?” You asked as you let the robber fall to the ground. She nodded her head as the Soldier in you made your hand twitch toward the gun. ‘No!’ You thought as you bent down and ripped off the man’s belt and shirt. You used them both to bound his ankles to his wrists behind his back. You grabbed his gun off the ground and set it on the counter before heading over to grab your things.

“Can you let me pay before you call the police? It’s just this… please.” You asked as you set the basket on the counter and put your boot on the robbers back between his shoulder blades. 

“You’re not paying.” She said as she reached out and pushed the basket back toward you. “Not after that.”

“No, I insist.” You said as you pulled money you stole days before from your pocket. She looked away from you with a shake of her head as she grabbed a shopping bag and poured the contents of the basket into it.

‘Kill her, you idiot!’ The Soldier screamed in your skull, causing your muscles to twitch violently at the conflicting thoughts. The woman looked up at you, confused and a little afraid as she handed you the bag.

“Here.” You said a little forcefully over the Soldier’s screams as you put the money down on the counter and took the bag. “Call the police. Say a man helped you. You never saw me.” She nodded and took a step away from you as you quickly kicked the robber in the stomach for good measure and walked out the door. You shoved the bag of things in your backpack to deal with later as you walked to the corner of the building and ran down the alley to get as far away as physically possible before the Soldier could make you turn back to finish the job.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2016

Just like you did every day, you sat precariously on the edge of the balcony of your bare apartment, watching the sun rise over the Bucharest sky line. Your right leg hung over the edge and you leaned against the wall that separated your corner apartment balcony from the empty one beside it. One of the dozens of notebooks you had filled with every memory that came to you in the past two years no matter how ugly the memory was lay open yet temporarily forgotten on your left thigh. 

You absentmindedly braided your nearly thigh length hair; the only part of the Wolf you couldn’t bring yourself to get rid of since you had never cut your hair before in your entire existence, as you watched a flock of birds fly in a ‘v’ across the light yellow, orange, and blue sky. Your mind ran over the nightmare that had woken up again; a faint memory of an indescribable pain that encompassed your entire body, and you tugged on your hair a bit in an attempt to wipe out the mental pain with real, current pain instead.

As the sun continued to rise, the street below you began to come alive with people heading to work, always rushing to get no where faster than the person next to them. A repeat memory of you running toward a hospital in London to go to work flittered across your mind and helped erase the lingering pain there. With a small, unheard sigh, you pulled your leg back over the side of your balcony wall and grabbed your notebook to head into the main square to grab some groceries so you could distract yourself for a little while.

You exchanged your notebook for the list of fresh ingredients for a recipe you saw in a cooking magazine at the pharmacy you wanted to try. With a quick glance at the tootsie roll bowl you had on your fridge to see how many you had left, you grabbed your black baseball cap, tucked your long braid into your black leather jacket, and headed out the door as you pulled on your leather glove to make sure your metal arm was completely covered.

——

“Sara. How are you today?” Daniela, the Romanian gypsy woman around your perceived age who worked your fruit stand asked as you paused in front of her table. You gave her the warmest smile you could muster and nodded.

“It’s a new day.” You responded like you did every time you came to see her. “We’ll see what it holds, yea?”

“Gosh, I wish I had your outlook on life.” She sighed as she handed you a paper bag for your produce. You nodded in agreement, wishing you actually you believed in the outlook you stole from a Brazilian magazine along with your chosen identity.

“Do you have kiwi’s by chance?” You asked as you showed her the list while grabbing a few strawberries for the fruit salad you wanted for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She shook her head and got up from her little stool.

“No kiwi’s.” She said with a shake of her head. “But try these together.” You looked over at her as your hand hesitated in the paper bag and your brow furrowed as she held out a plum and a peach. “Sweet and slightly tart. It should balance it out.” You shrugged as you reached out your hand and took the two fruits.

“I’ll try it.” You said with a shrug as she looked back down at your list.

“And blueberries I got hundreds.” She laughed as she grabbed a container off the table and poured about a half cup’s worth into a plastic baggy knowing that you came back every day anyways. “They are perfect this time of year, too.” You gave her another smile as she tossed the raspberries you needed in the same bag and handed it and your list back. 

“Hey, did you see this?” She asked as she sat back down and handed you the newspaper. “It looks an awful lot like you but I know it can’t be because I saw you yesterday…” Your stomach rolled as you looked at the photo of the suspect wanted for questioning regarding a bombing in Vienna that did look exactly like you. You shook your head and handed her back the newspaper and the bag of fruit.

“I forgot my money.” You mumbled as you turned to head back home. You made it to the corner and you were just about to cross toward your building when the Wolf in you noticed something you hadn’t. You froze on the corner and watched as Captain America slipped into your building. You instantly backtracked to the building behind you and pressed your body against the old brick as your eyes scoured the surrounding area for anyone else.

‘I see you.’ You thought as your eyes focused on a long haired brunette man on the roof top of the building diagonally from where you were standing who was fortunately looking the other way. You did one more quick glance at the buildings that were nearly all empty to begin with before making a mad dash across the road. You slipped into the building and silently headed up the stairs, knowing that you had to get your backpack before getting you could focus on getting away from this situation.

‘It wasn’t me.’ You thought. ‘This blood isn’t on my hands.’ You slipped into your apartment silently and looked at Steve’s broad back, trying to wrap your broken head around the fact that this was the same boy you kind of remembered patching up.

“Understood.” He said to your refrigerator a few moments before he turned around. You searched the blue eyes that were more familiar to you than the man himself as he closed the journal you had been writing in that morning. His eyes dragged down your body, taking in the changes he could see since he last saw you; the bulk of muscle from the adamantium and the super serum, and the vacant, dead look in your eyes and when he met your eyes again, you could see actual pity. 

“Do you know me?” He asked as he took a step toward you. You barely nodded your head a quarter of a centimeter, trying to get a read on where he stood and if he was coming to arrest you for the bombing you didn’t do or not.

“You’re Steve.” You said simply as you looked at the notebook he held. “Read about you in a museum.” He followed your gaze and set the book on the edge of the kitchen island as a very faint voice said ‘they set the perimeter’.

“I know you’re nervous. You have plenty of reason to be… but you’re lying.” You could feel your body tense as he took slow steps toward you. You instantly knew exactly what he saw in that notebook; the photo of the two of you you had printed out from the internet a long time ago.

“I wasn’t in Vienna. I don’t do that any more.” You said as you took a half step back while the same distant voice said that someone was entering the building. You wished that your Stevie would just walk away so you could grab your bag and run like you wanted to but he continued forward.

“Well the people who think you did are coming here now. And they're not planning on taking you alive.” You nodded your head and mentally prepared yourself for a fight as you looked up at the sound of footsteps on the roof.

“Smart. Good strategy.” You said over the man talking in Steve’s ear.

“This doesn't have end in a fight, (Y/N).” You took a deep breath as you reached up to pull your braid from your jacket so it wouldn’t get caught in the plates of your metal arm as you fought for your freedom.

“It always ends in a fight.” You sighed sadly as you glanced over at your old friend while you pulled off your gloves and put them in your pocket.

“Five seconds.”

“You pulled me from the river. Why?” He asked with an edge to his voice as he glanced out the covered windows of your apartment.

“I don’t know.” You lied as you grabbed a new hair tie from the bowl on your cinderblock and wood shelving unit and wrapped your braid in a bun at the base of your neck.

“Three seconds.”

“Yes you do.” He nearly whispered with a nod of his head as you let your arms fall to the side.

“Breach! Breach! Breach!” Both your head’s whipped over to the window as a grenade smashed through the glass in you kitchen. Steve knocked it back out with his shield seconds before a second grenade was thrown through the window above your bed toward you. You quickly kicked it toward him, part of you hoping it would take him out so you could get away and part of you praying that it didn’t, and you let out a minuscule sigh when he slammed his shield down on top of it before it exploded.

All hell broke loose as you slipped into fight mode, partially letting the beast that still lived in the deep, dark recesses of your mind take over. Your table went flying to block the door, the first body dropped unconscious a few seconds later and the need to flee became impossible to ignore. You ran toward your back door and kicked a police officer out of the way. You took only one step out the door before Steve grabbed the hood of your jacket and yanked you back.

“(Y/N), stop! You're gonna kill someone!” Anger flashed in your eyes as you put your right hand on his chest and easily slammed him down on your wood floor. You ignored the sheer terror in his eyes as you punched through the floor right next to his head.

“I'm not gonna kill anyone, Stevie.” You said evenly as you ripped your backpack out of the floorboards and threw it out the door to the building across the street that was your escape route. You snatched the last notebook off the counter and shoved it in your pocket just as you looked down at Steve one last time. Had you known at that moment what the end result of this fight was, you wouldn’t have hesitated and used your own body as a shield to protect him from the man that jumped through the far window and stared shooting at you both. 

You never would have let yourself get caught.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two days. They kept you in a glass box, strapped to a chair, in a brightly lit concrete room. You were escorted to the restroom twice a day by not just Steve, but his friend Bucky (or maybe it was Bird boy… you didn’t really care), Tony Stark, some silent redhead, and about four other armed guards. They gave you water and a little food and put you back in your box, three armed guard simply staring at you in full tactical gear watched you like hawks… for two straight days. Sure, you could have got out easily… but you had no where else you really needed to be. You just wished they would give you back your journals.

Day three was the best and worst day of your existence.

He said he was sent in to evaluate you but even the beast, who rarely showed her ugly face much anymore until you were arrested, felt uneasy about him. You sat tensely, straining against your restraints so you could pull them free at any moment if need be.

“You’ve seen a great deal, haven’t you, (Y/N)? Being one hundred and seventy five years old…” He tried as you balled your hands into fists.

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” You growled as the restraint on your left ankle popped. You didn’t move an inch to let onto it as you stared at the man at the table who was watching your face.

“You fear that… if you open your mouth, the horrors might never stop.” He said slowly and evenly as he looked over at the laptop beside him on the table. “Don't worry. We only have to talk about one.” Your heart stopped as the room was plunged into darkness for a full second before red emergency lights kicked on an an alarm sounded. 

‘Run’ the monster said as you kicked your right leg free. Your panicked eyes followed his hands as he reached in to his briefcase and pulled out the red book you hated with every fiber of your being.

“No!” You screamed as he grabbed a flashlight and slowly stood up from the table. “Please don't!” You roared and yanked your arms free. The demon in you lunged in your mind as she realized she had the chance to show her ugly face again but you weren’t giving up without a fight this time.

“желание.” (Longing)

You reached up with both freed hands and ripped the thick chest strap off. You used it as a battering ram and punched at the hinges of the thick glass plated door as the man slowly walked toward you. 

“ржавый” (Rusted) 

“No!” You roared as the main door to the room was ripped open. You abandoned your current attempt of getting out and moved a step back as Steve ran into the room at an inhuman speed. You grabbed the arm rests of the chairs for balance and kicked the door with both feet, sending it flying across the room and it shattered against the wall.

“Who sent you?” Steve shouted as he pinned the man up against the wall by the throat.

“No!” You screamed one final time before you dropped your claws and slammed them into the mans stomach. “I said no!” You said as his wide, fear filled eyes found yours. Tears spilled from your eyes as the voice in your head began to grow faint once more and you grabbed the red book from his hands and threw it across the room.

“Not again!” You gasped as you pulled your claws from his stomach and punched them into the wall by his head. “Never again.”

“(Y/N)…” Steve said as you choked on your tears. You shook your head and pulled your hand from the wall to get to that damn book.

“Don’t touch it!” You screeched at Bucky as you walked on shaky legs over to the book that literally ruined your life. He pulled his hands back as you fell to your hip and grabbed the book off the floor. You sobbed as you ripped it open and began shredding the pages into pieces of paper shrapnel.

“Give her space, Tony.” Steve said as you got to your knees beside the pile of paper and made sure you had every single piece there was. Once satisfied, you let out your claws and hit them together a few times until the sparks lit a piece on fire. You sat back on your heels and your eyes landed on a small HYDRA logo that had been hand drawn on a corner of a page.

Your tears turned into a huffed laugh as you watched the yellow and orange flame quickly devour the paper. Once it disappeared completely, your laugh got a little stronger until you were bent over double and grabbing your stomach.

“I win!” You cheered as you bushed the last few pieces of unburnt paper into the flame to make sure the only thing that could turn you into the Winter Wolf was gone forever. “I win, assholes!”

“Hey…” Steve said softly as he crouched down in front of you. You looked up at him with the first smile you had in over a decade. “You with me?”

“I’m with you, Stevie.” You said with a nod as you looked back down at the smoldering pile and rubbed the ash across the ground so that it was completely out. Your smile fell the slightest bit as you looked over at the bare red book cover and you shook your head slightly. “But I’m not alone in here.” You grabbed the book and clutched it in your metal hand as the beast almost sighed in your head in annoyance at being teased. “She’s still here.”

“OK.” He said softly as he stuck out his hand to you to help you up and you clutched to book cover to your chest. “Just helping you up, (Y/N). It’s my turn to patch you up.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’d keep your distance, Buck.” Steve said softly as he looked across the Quinjet at where you were huddled in a corner, gripping the red book to your chest with one hand and the strap of your backpack in the other. Bucky shook his head as he glanced over at you.

“Trust me, Cap. I know this’ll help.” Steve nodded slowly as he glanced out the front window of the jet at the landscape below.

“Just keep your guard up.” He said as he pat his friend’s shoulder. “We’re still a few hours out of Wakanda. Don’t need Natasha putting this bird down before it’s necessary.” Bucky nodded and brushed a loose strand of hair back behind his ear. He walked across the jet and your eyes whipped up toward him before he even made it half way, having head the entire conversation they were trying to keep quiet. He gave you a tight lipped smile and gestured to the ground in front of you.

“Mind if I sit down?” You didn’t say a word or move other than to tighten your grip around your belongings. After a moment, he took your silence as an acceptance of his request. Your eyes watched his every move as he stretched out his legs and pulled his phone from his jeans pocket. He hit the screen a few times and scrolled through to find something before tapping once more. Your brow barely twitched as ‘Georgia On My Mind’ by Hoagy Carmichael began to play from the small speaker.

Your mind was ricocheted to a long forgotten memory of a sweet customer named Eugene that insisted on dancing with you during a slow over night shift at the diner. Despite the depression that cost him literally everything, he had a giant smile on his face as he twirled you around in front of the diner bar to the music playing on the little radio. He sang to you off key as your cook laughed at you both from the kitchen behind you and you remembered laughing your butt off when Eugene tripped on his untied shoelace and stumbled into a chair.

Another memory came in nearly right after it of the swing your late husband, John made for you that hung in the giant oak tree in front of your beautiful plantation home in Georgia. One night in particular stuck out; a night shortly after you got married where you and John sat on that swing counting stars you could see in the beautiful night sky. 

“I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life doing this with you.” He had said softly as he pulled you closer to his side and gently kissed your temple. You nodded your head softly and laid it down on his shoulder with a content sigh.

A barely seen smile pulled at the corner of your lips as you let go of the red book and started to dig through your bag for a notebook and a pen. You missed the look shared between Steve and Bucky as you sat back and opened it to a clean page to write down the two memories before someone had the chance to take them away from you again. With a proud smile, Bucky leaned back against the metal wall of the jet and set his phone on his thigh to let you keep remembering.

——

“She’s clear.” Shuri said proudly to her brother, T’Challa, Steve and Tony as she looked at the computer screen that looked like complete gibberish to you. “You can say those trigger words forward, backwards, or anyway you want. She won’t turn.”

“I can still hear her.” You said meekly of the voice that was taunting you and telling you the young scientist was lying.

“That’s normal.” She said with a nod as she stepped in front of you so that you could see what she was doing. “The voice may go away and it may not. Just like you said she sort of did when you were in Romania.” She gestured you forward and waited until you came part way to her willingly so she could take off the sensors she had placed there; making sure you slowly started to realize that you could make your own choices again.

“Your mind has created this voice as a coping mechanism.” She started, talking directly to you but teaching the men in the room as well. “You were calm in Romania, yes?” You nodded as she set her sensors aside and grabbed a rolling stool. She sat down, giving you a little space and smiled. “So when you were calm and in control, this Wolf of yours didn’t need to make her presence known. But when you start to stress…”

“She comes back.” You said softly as you both nodded slowly.

“Don’t ignore her.” She said with a small shake of her finger. “But don’t exactly listen to her either. When she speaks, hear what she has to say and make your own decision. Do not let her take control. Remove yourself from that situation if you can and write down what she has to say so you can see it if you need to or talk to Captain Rogers about it if you feel comfortable. You’ll find that that will help make her go away faster or possibly permanently.” You nodded your head at her as she scooted away from you for a moment.

“Steve said you write a lot? Memories and such?” She asked as she grabbed a small box. You nodded your head as she set the box on her thighs. “I invented this for you if you don’t mind.” She pulled out a book that looked like a thin notebook and held it out to you before pulling out a pen. “Please don’t feel obligated to use it if you prefer your method.”

“So these are smart pages.” She said as you opened the book to the first, lined white page. “Write something for me. Like the first color you can think of.” You took the pen and wrote the word ‘white’ on the page in black ink. It looked exactly the same as your notebook. “Now add a date behind it. Today’s is July 18th, 2016.” You nodded your head and wrote the date down. “Now this…” She said as she slowly moved her hand toward you and pushed the cover page open until it was flat. “This will set it up in a timeline for you.” You looked over at the screen that lit up on the back cover when laid flat and leaned toward it to see the small date and the word beside it. “You can just tap the date and the note will pop up so you can read it and when you are done reading it, you just hit the ‘x’.” You nodded again as you watched her demonstrate.

“Can you do colors? My notebooks are color coded…”

“Like this.” She said as she gestured to the pen. “May I?” You nodded and handed it to her. She turned it toward you and pointed to a little button near the top. “Say you want to use a blue pen. You push this button and point this side toward something that’s that color.” You watched as she pushed the button and pointed the round end of the pen at the blue jeans you had on. “It works for any color.” She said as she handed it back to you. “Now write the color of your shirt but with no date.” You wrote ‘black’ in blue ink with no date directly under the first line and looked over at the cover page. You watched as the note appeared in that color in a different column. 

“Those will organize in the order that you write them in this column. If you remember the date later, you can just tap the note over here and double tap it.” She waited for you to comply and pointed back at the white pages. “And just write. It will add to that note. And then just hit the ‘x’ when your done, same as usual. To erase, you draw a line through the word you want to erase and when you fill the pages up, you just brush your hand flat across the page.” You watched her demonstrate erasing and moved your hands out of her way so she could show you how to clear the page. 

“It just gives you more room to write but doesn’t delete any of the notes you had written. And I also wrote out a detailed instructions manual on how it all works just in case you forget. There’s a few more little things the notebook is capable of but I will let you figure it out. I’m sure Bucky or Natasha or someone can help you if you need it. Oh! And if someone else opens it, it will be blank to them unless you are touching the notebook so you have some privacy.”

“Thank you.” You breathed as you looked up at her with tears in your eyes. “That’s so nice of you.” She smiled as she pulled the instruction manual from the box and handed it to you.

“It was my pleasure, (Y/N). It has been an honor to meet you.” A blush spread across your cheeks and you looked away, embarrassed and some what ashamed.

“It’s not.” You said with a shake of your head. 

“You will know so one day.” She said with a nod as you closed the notebook and held it to your chest, protectively. “And please know, you are always welcome to come back to Wakanda any time, right brother?”

“Our doors are always open to you, Ms. (Y/L/N). A friend of Captain Rogers is a friend of Wakanda.” You looked up at him, knowing exactly what he was saying since he was made to believe you had killed his father not a month prior, and nodded.

“Thank you, your Majesty.”

“You ready to go, (Y/N)?” Steve asked as he pat T’Challa on the back in silent thanks. You nodded your head and got up off the table you were sitting.

“Thank you both again.” You said as you bowed just your head at Shuri and the King. “For everything.” You looked over at Steve and gave him a tight lipped smile. “Let’s go home, Stevie.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You realized relatively quickly in the Avengers compound that sleeping wasn’t something that was happening for you anytime soon. You couldn’t get comfortable on the ‘amazing bed’ Tony bragged about over dinner, you were still running on Wakanda/ Romania time, and you couldn’t help agree with the voice in your head that you didn’t feel 100% safe despite the fact that Steve’s room was directly across the hall from you. When you glanced over at the clock for the tenth time in twenty minutes to see if it was remotely acceptable to get out of bed, you simply gave up and got up anyways.

You got dressed, grabbed your new notebook and the most recent one you had been using in Romania you were planning on copying into the new system. You planned on heading out to the living room to see if you could find a way to get outside but just as you were quietly pulling your bedroom door closed, the door one room down opened. Your claws instantly shot out and you turned in that direction as Bucky swore under his breath.

“Stand down.” He whisper laughed as you retracted your claws. “Man, if I wasn’t awake before…”

“Sorry.” You said softly as he closed his bedroom door.

“Couldn’t sleep?” He asked as he turned toward you and the hall to the living room but stayed where he was. You shook your head as you glanced at your closed bedroom door.

“It’s too soft.” He nodded in agreement and gestured down the hall as he took a step in that direction. 

“I had the same problem. I’ll help you put the mattress on the floor later… it helps.” You nodded in thanks as the two of you headed down the hall into the living room. “I get nightmares. Side effect of being in the war, I guess.” You nodded in agreement as he flipped on the living room light and grabbed a seat on one of the couches.

“They don’t go away.” You whispered as you sat down in a plush seat halfway across the room from him. “I still dream about both my wars.”

“Damn.” He said as he turned on the TV and turned the volume down. “That isn’t all that reassuring.” You smirked the tiniest bit as he kicked his bare feet up on the coffee table.

“Sorry.” He waved you off before turning his attention to the TV to give you some privacy. The two of you fell into a comfortable silence as he found some action movie to watch and you began the long process of organizing the last one hundred and seventy five scrambled years of your life. After almost an hour of writing, you noticed how quiet your head was and you sat up a little straighter and set both notebooks down.

“She’s gone.” You said with a smile.

“Who?” Bucky asked as he slowly dragged his eyes from the movie he was distracted by. “Wait, the voice?” You nodded as you looked up at the ceiling as if you were trying to look back in your head.

“I must feel safe with you.” You said as you looked back down at him. He smiled broadly as he sat up and dropped his feet on the ground. 

“That’s progress, sweetheart. I’m happy for you.” He watched you for a moment as you closed both of your notebooks before he leaned forward on his thighs. “Think you can trust me enough to let me show you something special?” You looked up at him with your eyebrows raised as you stopped part way from opening your notebooks to keep writing. You watched him for a moment, almost waiting for the beast to call out on his trustworthiness. When she remained silent, you nodded your head subtly. “Alright, go grab your jacket. It’s cold outside.”

——

“Alright, you gotta trust me.” Bucky said as he put his goggles on. “You can’t go all Freddy Kruger on me…”

“What’s that?” You asked as you zipped up your jacket and shivered slightly. He chuckled and shook his head.

“It’s a movie. I’ll show you one day. It just means no claws. Now come here and face me.” You nodded and did what he asked. “Alright, now you’re gunna need to hold on. No offense but your bones are made of metal so you’ll be a little heavy…”

“Are you calling me fat, Mr. Barnes?” You teased softly as you stepped up to him and put your hands on his shoulders.

“Yea, ‘cause I’m gunna call the girl with not only a metal arm but metal claws fat.” He laughed as he started up his EXO-7 suit and walked you both toward the edge of the roof of the Avengers facility. “I don’t have that much of a death wish.” You giggled as he looked over at you. “No claws.”

“No claws.” With a single nod and the loud whirl of the motors on his suit, you felt your feet lift up slightly off the ground. You let out a small squeal and wrapped your arms around his neck as he set you back down for a moment.

“You’re gunna feel like you’re falling.” He said a little loudly over the sounds his suit was making. “But I promise you’re safe.” You nodded and moved your hands so that they were pointed away from him just in case.

“OK… I’m ready.” With one final nod, he put his hand on the small of your back and leaned forward so the pair of you literally fell over the edge. You screeched, wrapped your legs around his hips, and forced yourself to keep your claws in as he took his hand off your back and grabbed his wings. Your stomach lurched and you laughed loudly as you watched the tree line shift over his shoulder when he leveled out.

“Oh, my Lord.” You breathed as he headed over the tree line on his side. “This is incredible.”

“This is nothing.” He said as he rolled over so you were looking up at the night sky. Trust me.” You nodded again and turned your head to the side to watch the landscape as he tilted to the side to head toward the west. He was only airborne a few more minutes before he began his decent into the trees. “This… is where you can usually find me when I can’t sleep.” He said as he came to a stop in the wet grass and folded up his wings. You put your feet down and stepped away from him. Your jaw dropped as you looked at the gorgeous lake and the tree line behind it. He smiled down at you as he pulled off his goggles. “Come on. I’m not done.” You looked back over at him then followed him toward the trees.

“Wanna race?” You asked as he stopped beside a massive, old pine and pointed up.

“Not a chance.” He laughed as you ignored his offered hand, ran a few steps, and leapt up to grab the bottom most branch. You easily pulled yourself up and smiled down at him.

“Need a hand?”

“Show off.” He mumbled with a chuckle as he jumped up and grabbed the same branch. The two of you climbed up the tree, guided by the steadily brighting sun light, until you came to a small break in the trees he had obviously cleared out for himself. You each grabbed a thicker branch, sat down, and looked out over one of the most gorgeous views you had seen in decades.

“This is…” You breathed as you held onto the tree trunk lightly and watched as the stars began to disappear and the colors you loved so much began to share themselves with the world once more. 

“I know.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“She let you take her flying?” Steve asked as he and Bucky helped you rearrange your bedroom so that it felt more like ‘home’ to you.

“Right here, Stevie.” You said as you picked up your three drawer dresser and moved it out of the way of where you wanted your mattress in the corner on the floor.

“She let me take her flying.” Bucky repeated as he and Steve lifted your mattress off the bed frame and put it on the ground where you wanted it under the windows and tight up against the wall. 

“I trust him.” You said as you pulled the bed frame and head board out of their way. “Well, at least I think I do. The Wolf doesn’t yell at me around him.”

“Wow.” Steve said as he nodded his head and grabbed the end of your long dresser opposite you. “We’re making progress.”

“Yea well that’s not to say that that could change tomorrow.” You said as you set the dresser down next to the door. “Or in an hour.”

“No, but it’s progress all the same.” Steve said as he grabbed the bookshelf he had gotten from Tony from the hall. You nodded in agreement as Bucky took down the artwork Tony had up on the walls that, for what ever reason, made you uncomfortable. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks Stevie.” You said as you pat him on the back. You moved over to your bed and looked around the room to begin the process of making sure everything was placed for a dual purpose but Steve turned to get your bed frame out of the room for you and shook his head.

“Don’t do that.” He scolded. “Don’t plan for the worst. You don’t have to live like that in here.”

“Can’t help it.” You said as you sat down on your bed that felt ten times better on the ground.

“Well try for me.” He said as he picked up the frame with the still attached headboard. “Or else I’ll move your furniture around and bolt it to the ground so it can’t be used as weapons.”

“You know what, Stevie.” You said as you got up off the bed and pointed at him. “I don’t like you right now.”

“Yea, yea.” He said as he maneuvered the discarded bed out your bedroom door. “Well when you change your mind, I’ll help you unpack all the books that helped me with what I missed in the ice since I know you love to read and all.”

“Ooo, books!” You cheered as you followed Steve toward the door. “OK. I like you again, Stevie.”

“So it’s that easy, huh?” Bucky laughed as he finished setting up the TV in the corner at the foot of your bed.

“Oh, trust me. It’s that easy.” Steve said as he headed across the hall to get the books for you. “She is a big reader…”

“That’s because I’m from an age before television, thank you.” You said as you reached across the thresh hold of your door way so you didn’t break the bubble of safety you were in in your room. “This was my form of entertainment as a child.”

“Well I have a whole bunch of books you can borrow when you’re done with those.” Bucky said as he carried the extra bedside table you didn’t want or need out into the hall. “Just let me know.” 

“Thanks, Bucky.” You said with a smile as you set the box of books down by the book shelf to unload them. You looked over at him as the voice in your head hummed and told you how hot he was, followed by some pretty racy ideas. “Give me a few days and I’ll take you up on that.” He smiled back at you and headed out of the room with the bedside table to let you have some space to unpack the rest of your belongings that Pepper had had ordered for you while you were in Wakanda.

“Don’t stay in here all day.” Steve said as he grabbed the last painting off the wall and glanced at the clock on your dresser. “You have to come out at least once before two pm and using the bathroom doesn’t count, you hear?”

“You know I’m older than you, right?” You reminded him as you read the back cover of a book called ‘The DaVinci Code’. You glanced up at him as you turned to set that one on the bedside table to read first before grabbing a history book about something that happened on September 11th from the box.

“Oh, I know.” He laughed as he grabbed your door knob. “But I make the rules here. You have to come out for lunch between now and two, understood?”

“Understood.” You said as you finished reading the synopsis for the history book and put it on the second shelf so you could have some sort of organization. Your friend chuckled and closed the door behind him, knowing full well that with what he saw in Wakanda of your trepidation around groups of people, he was going to have to bring you lunch and he wouldn’t see you outside of the bedroom for a long time unless you were sure you would be alone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When the dream first started, you knew exactly where you were. It was a small, dark, windowless, concrete room that had nothing in it except a blood stained mattress. You turned toward the thick, metal door and pushed on it but it wouldn’t budge so you simply sat down on the mattress like you were conditioned to do. It was only a matter of minutes before the lock turned in the door and a pair of bright blue eyes bore deep into your soul as a dark, twisted version of the man you partially considered a son stormed into the room.

“Get up.” He growled as he grabbed your arm and yanked you too your feet. You followed willingly and tears welled in your eyes at the familiarity of it.

“Stevie, please.” You begged as the first glimpse of the chair came into view. As you rounded the corner, a second pair of blue eyes looked up from the red book Bucky had in his hands.

“We don’t want you here, (Y/N).” He sneered. “(Y/N)…”

“(Y/N)!” Steve screamed loudly directly in your face as he held your hands tight in his hands so you couldn’t stab him with your claws even though you hadn’t even let them out. You screamed ‘no’, spun on your sweat dampened mattress, and kicked him hard in the stomach, sending him flying across the room into your dresser.

“Stand down!” Tony yelled as he pointed both his repulsors at you and let them hum to full power.

“Don’t!” Steve roared as he forced himself to his feet and moved to stand in front of Tony. “I got it.” He said as he watched you crouch in the corner with a knife he didn’t know you had in your hands. “(Y/N), look at me.” He said as the voice in your head screamed at you to fight back and protect yourself. “We’re not going to hurt you.”

“Shut up!” You screamed in Russian as you pointed at him with your knife. “You’re lying! I saw you!”

“Come back to me, (Y/N).” He said softly, not understanding what you said. 

“Give me the book!” You demanded.

“The book. The red book!” Natasha called out from the hall as she pushed her way past Bucky to get in your room. “Show her the book.”

“OK.” Steve said simply with a wince as he slowly made his was over to your book shelf. “I got it.” He crouched down next to the bookshelf and slowly reached down to grab the book cover you had hidden behind the shelving unit. He pulled it out and you tensed even more as he stood up with a groan and held on to his painful, broken ribs.

“Drop it.” You growled as you pointed at the bed at your feet. Natasha translated for you and Steve took a step forward and gently tossed the book at your feet. Your head screamed at you to kill him as you reached down and snatched the book off the bed.

“It’s over, (Y/N).” He said as you looked at the empty shell. “It’s all over. You’re safe.”

‘Got ya.’ The Wolf said before laughing manically. Tears welled in your eyes as the knife fell from your hand and landed on the bed.

“But I saw it.” You said in English as you shook your head. “I saw you…”

“It wasn’t real.” Steve said as he lowered himself to the floor and leaned back against your dresser with a hiss. “It was just a nightmare.” You shook your head and squeezed your eyes closed as Natasha started to shoo the team out of your room.

“I can’t do this.” You gasped as you collapsed on the bed and stared at the red book in your hands. You shook your head as tears fell on the hard binding. “I can’t. I can’t do this.”

“You can do this.” Steve said with a nod. “You can. I know you can.” You shook your head again as you curled up and clutched the book to your chest.

“I’m sorry.” You said as you hid your face in the wall in shame as the Wolf continued to cackle in your skull. “I’m sorry.”


	3. Chapter 3

You hid in your room for two weeks, only allowed yourself thirty minutes of sleep at a time, and only came out to eat when you were one hundred percent positive every one else was asleep. You kept your door locked every minute of every day and refused to let anyone, including Steve, in. The only sign the team had that you were still alive was the laundry you put outside your door once a week and the missing snacks Bucky would put outside your door so you wouldn’t starve despite Steve protesting he did so.

“FRIDAY, unlock this door.” You heard Steve say on day 15 of your self imposed isolation.

“FRIDAY, don’t do it!” You called out from the corner as the locked popped open. You groaned as the Wolf instantly started her taunting. 

“Get up.” Steve said as he called you forward with his finger. “Now, (Y/N)!” You scowled and shook your head but he actually growled at you. “I will drag you out of this room, you hear me?”

“You’re rude.” You said as you got up slowly.

“And you’re not even trying!” He snapped. “Now move!” With a major scowl, you got up off the floor and walked so you were just outside the door. 

“Happy?” You asked as you quickly sat down on the floor. Without even blinking, he bent down, grabbed your ankle, and literally dragged you down the hall with you pouting with your arms crossed the whole way. “See, she’s right. I’m not safe with you, you… brute!”

“Sit.” He said over the voice screaming at you that you were gunna die as he dropped your leg and pointed to a chair. “This is Bruce. He’s gunna talk to you while you eat more than just a granola bar for lunch.” You stayed exactly where you were and looked over at the pair of jean covered legs on the other side of the table.

“Do I just start talking?” Bruce asked as Steve sat down next to him at the head of the table.

“Yep. The Wolf is stubborn but she’ll get control soon enough.” You turned your glare on him and continued to lay on the floor as Bruce stood up a little bit to see your face for a moment.

“I know what you’re going through.” He said as he sat back down and looked at Steve with a shrug. “I deal with the same thing. Though the other guy doesn’t make me lay on the floor when he’s not happy.” Your brow furrowed and you sat up to look at him over the edge of the table. 

“You have no idea…” You snapped.

“YOU have no idea.” He shouted as his face tinted the slightest bit green. Your eyes went wide as you watched the actual shift in his eyes as he cleared his throat and raised his hand, palm up, toward you. “My apologies. The other guy gets a little… agitated sometimes.” You nodded your head, knowing exactly what he meant. 

“So does the Wolf.” You said as you reached up slowly to grab your plate. Steve quickly pushed it out of your reach and caught your other hand before you could grab at his plate as well.

“At the table.” He growled as he moved his plate out of your reach as well. “Pay attention.” He glanced over at Bruce and nodded for him to continue.

“Well…” Banner said as he looked back at the side of your scowling face. “So I used to be terrified of the other guy. I feared becoming him and did everything I could to avoid situations that could even be a chance. I even hid in a small town in India… and I’m talking maybe a thousand people total, because I figured they would be more humble and kinder than other places in the world. But I was still living in fear.” You nodded in understanding as you very cautiously pulled yourself up in the chair across the table from him.

“Bucharest.” You said softly as you tucked your feet up on the chair so you could hide your body behind your knees.

“I got so low, I even tried to commit suicide. Though… the other guy spit out the bullet.” Tears welled in your eyes as you though of your own failed suicide attempt after DC because of your own fear of the Wolf. “But I realized something when I started working for the Avengers. I realized that there is nothing to be afraid of. Sure I have this literal, green, rage monster inside of me… but why should he dictate what I do with my life? Why should he decided what to do? And I realized that he shouldn’t. So how did I control him?” He shrugged as he stabbed a piece of pineapple with his fork and gestured in a small circle to point at the room.

“I came here and did what I love. Science. I got another Ph. D, I learn about things I didn’t already know. I develop contributions to not only the scientific community but to SHIELD and the Avengers as well. I keep my self busy so that the other guy doesn’t have time to make noise anymore until I need him to. Which is where you are at.

I know this… Wolf of yours is loud; the other guy was too. But you can’t give in to it. No matter how hard it is. And until you can get her to quiet down again like you did in Romania, you have to find something you love doing as a distraction. And you have to trust that you are safe whether you believe it or not. Because if you keep feeling like you are threatened, you’re going to let the Wolf win. And the Wolf winning is something none of us want.” You nodded again as he ate the piece of pineapple he had been waving around as Steve set his silverware down on his empty plate.

“Now, we get that trust isn’t going to happen over night. It’s a process. So, for the time being, we’ve all come up with an idea. Every day, you’re going to come out and have lunch with one person on the team and me. Half hour minimum getting to know the people you’re living with. And you’re picking up a hobby again. Reading and writing in your journal are good but…” He glanced over at Bruce and gestured to the chair beside him. The doctor reached over and grabbed a large bag off the chair and set it on the table. “You used to knit. Don’t know if you remember that or not but you made blankets for the hospital and clothes for the homeless people that lived a few blocks down the road from my house. And I know the screening room always gets chilly for movie nights. So you got a bunch of colors and a few different needle sizes in here…”

“I don’t…” You tried as you reached out to pull the bag toward you.

“Just try.” He said with a nod of encouragement. “Try for me, OK?” You sighed and nodded as you pulled out a ball of ‘cloud blue’ yarn according to the wrapper.

“Alright, Stevie.” You sighed as you put it back in the bag. “I’ll try.” Bruce cocked his eyebrow and looked between you and Steve.

“Stevie?” He asked.

“She’s the only one allowed to call me that.” Steve said as he reached out and pulled your plate in front of you. “The only one.”

“That’s because he will always be the small kid who couldn’t walk away from a fight in my eyes.” You said as you picked up your fork before Steve whacked your knee and gestured for you to put your feet down before you ate.

“Yea well now I get to take care of her… the second mother that is temporarily acting like a petulant child.”

“You know what, Stevie I may be tiny but I always have been and always will be able to kick your ass. You remember that, boy.” He smirked as you picked up half your sandwich with a smile.

“Trust me, you didn’t let me forget it then and I know you won’t let me forget it now.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Your fingers worked with a mind of their own making a second blanket for the screening room as you and Natasha sat in a completely silent stare off across the dinner table. There was something about her that you couldn’t trust but you just couldn’t put your finger on what it was. And apparently Natasha was waiting for you to be the first to speak. Which is why the pair of you and Steve had been sitting at the table for almost two hours in absolute silence.

“Who are you?” You finally asked at the two and a half hour mark.

“Natalia Alianovna Romanoff.” She said in Russian as she crossed her arms over her chest. “I was an assassin for the KGB.” Your fingers instantly stopped as a faint flash of a memory raced through your brain. Your brow furrowed as you studied her face trying to place it. After a few moments, she cocked her lip into a small smile and the memory of the light in her eyes came back to you like a brick wall.

“I trained you.” You said simply as you set aside your knitting. She nodded slowly as she uncrossed her arms and rested them on the table. “We…”

“We did.” She said with a nod as a small smile spread across her face. “We were together.”

“Talia…” You breathed as you reached across the table for her hands. “Moya malen'kaya lyubov'.” Her smile grew as she let you take ahold of her hands.

“I was wondering if you’d come back to me, moya zvezda.”

“What did they do to you, little love?” You asked as she brushed her thumbs across your fingers. She shook her head and sighed.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“You two want to continue this in English, maybe?” Steve asked as he looked at the two of you.

“You don’t want to know what we’re saying, Cap.” Natasha said with a glance over at him.

“Why didn’t you say something?” You asked, completely ignoring Steve’s request and continuing in Russian. He sighed and got up from the table to clean up the lunch plates.

“You needed to remember on your own.” She said. “And I couldn’t hurt you again.” Tears welled in your eyes and you nodded in understanding as you remembered the torture you endured because of your love affair with the assassin. She quickly shook her head as she let go of your hands and moved from her chair to Steve’s. She pulled it up to your side, took your hands back in her left, and wiped your tears away with the right.

“I do not regret loving you.” She said softly as she gently pinched your chin between her fingers. “Never. You will always hold a place in my heart, my star.” Tears fell softly from your eyes as you cupped her jaw in your hand and leaned forward to kiss her gently. You could feel her smile as she slid her hand up your jaw and tangled her fingers in your hair. 

“See, I don’t know whether to be pissed that my girlfriend is kissing someone else or be extremely turned on that my girlfriend is kissing a girl.” Clint said as he came into the kitchen from his hallway to grab something to drink. Nat pulled away with a huffed laugh as she rested her forehead against yours.

“Shut up, Clint.”

“Yea, shut up, Clint.” Bucky said behind you who had also come out for a snack figuring your mandatory lunch date was long over. “You’re interrupting the girl on girl…”

“Leave them be!” Steve hollered without looking away from the TV so you could have your privacy. “We’re making progress here!”

“Man, Tony’s gunna be pissed he’s missing this.” Clint said as he popped the top of his sports drink and leaned on the counter to keep watching as you gave Natasha one more chaste kiss before getting a little nervous and pulling back.

“Want to show me what you’re making, love?” She asked gently in English, pulling your focus toward her and not the guys. “Let me see.” You nodded your head, giving the woman who was almost always more dominant over your undivided attention.

“It’s for the screen room.” You said with a proud smile as you grabbed your knitting. You set it across both your laps as the guys gave up watching and joined Steve on the couches.

“It’s perfect.” She said with a smile. “Wanna show me how to do it? I mean I could never be this good.” You nodded and giggled as she helped you move the blanket more on her lap.

“I’ve had decades of practice.” You replied as you both simultaneously kicked your feet up next to the other’s hips on the chairs. “I’d teach you but you’re too impatient.”

“I am.” She laughed as she brushed her thumb across your ankle while you worked. “But I’ll still watch.”

“Because that’s the girl on girl action men want to see.” You teased in Russian with a glance over at Clint and Bucky who were watching you both out of the corner of their eyes.

“They couldn’t handle us on their best days anyways.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You were sitting in the living room, nearing the end of knitting a blanket for Wanda and Vision’s bed in the middle of the night, when you thought you heard a distant groan from behind you. Your head whipped around and you quickly hit the power button on the radio Tony had made and dumbed down for you that was preset with songs and radios shows from the old days. A moment later, you most definitely heard a mumbled, angst filled ‘no’, so you gathered up the large blanket and your ball of yarn to figure out the source of the noise. You only had to go one door down when Bucky said ‘no Sam’ a little louder.

“Bucky.” You said in an even voice as you knocked on the door and pushed it open. “Hey Buck.” He whined in his sleep and with a sigh at invading is privacy, you walked into his room and flipped on his bedside light.

“Bucky, you’re dreaming.” You said gently as you shook his shoulder. He bolted up straight with a loud gasp and you couldn’t help but gasp and jump back away from the bed.

“Shit… shit, (Y/N). I’m sorry.” He breathed as he crossed his legs under the blanket and ran his hand through his hair. “Did I wake you?” You shook your head as he looked over at you and took a deep breath to steady his racing heart.

“Not tired.” You said as you showed him the blanket. “Was trying to finish Wanda’s blanket so I can start on an embarrassing sweater for Steve, tomorrow.” He huffed a laugh and nodded his head as he scrubbed his hand over his face.

“Well I’m up now.” He said as he gestured to the TV. “Wanna finish it in here? We can watch some TV.” You ‘umm’ed’ as you looked between him, the TV, the door, and your blanket. You looked back at him and nodded slowly.

“Yea… yea that’s OK.” With a nod, he scooted toward you and pat the far side of the bed.

“Alright, let’s see this design of yours.” He said as he turned on the TV and turned it down. You smiled as you got up on the bed and carefully spread the blanket across both your laps so he could see it. You brushed your hand across the dark grey, raised patterned blanket with a smile.

“It’s almost done.” You said as you held on to the part you were working on so it wouldn’t come undone. “This one took me a little longer because of the size and pattern.”

“Wow, this is amazing.”

“Thank you. This was the only thing to really do during the Civil War.” Bucky nodded as he leaned back against the headboard and moved a pillow behind your back for you to lean on. “The woman that lived on the next plantation over… which was about a thirty minute walk mind you, we used to go back and forth on who’s porch we were sitting on to knit and wait for our husbands to return from the war.”

“You were married?” He asked as you leaned back on the pillow and went back to work.

“I was.” You said as you crossed your ankles with a nod. “His name was John… but he passed away in the war. Don’t go saying sorry now.” You giggled as you glanced over at him. “That was well over a hundred years ago.”

“Was he your only husband?” You nodded as you pulled the blanket toward you a bit as you came up to the end of the row.

“You may find this a little shocking but I’ve only been with two people in my life. I kinda had other things going on.”

“Wait, what?” He said a little loudly as he looked over at you. You shushed him with a laugh and nodded.

“Just John and Natalia… Natasha.” You corrected as you kept your eyes on your knitting to hide your blush. “I think… I mean… there are like giant chunks of my life missing and all still. But don’t you forget, I’m a lady and ladies don’t speak of such scandalous topics with men.”

“Your secret is safe with me.” He chuckled as he scooted down under the blanket and got comfortable. He didn’t say anything for a while and you assumed he was into his show but you were absolutely wrong. “So… um… well is there a video or something of you and Nat somewhere that maybe I could preview for scientific purposes?”

“If there was a video and you saw it, I would have to kill you.” You replied without missing a beat or looking up from your fingers.

“Alright then. No video. Got it.” He laughed as he rolled onto his side and propped his head up on his hand. You smirked and glanced down at him before shaking your head and going back to the last dozen rows.

——

“Hey Buck, have you seen…” Steve said as he walked into his friends room. Bucky instantly shushed him and glanced down at where you had fallen asleep on his thigh when he was drinking a cup of coffee.

“She fell asleep around four and hasn’t moved since.” Steve’s eyes went wide as he looked at the clock on the bedside table. 

“She’s been asleep for seven hours?” He whispered as he leaned against the door frame. Bucky nodded as he continued to run his fingers through your hair.

“I’m not moving.” Bucky said as he held out his coffee mug. “But I’m dying for caffeine, man. And a sandwich, too.” With a nod, Steve came over to grab the coffee mug and glance at what he could see of your peaceful face around the blanket you had finished that Bucky wrapped around you.

“Thanks for this, Buck. She really needed some sleep.” Bucky nodded as he smiled down at you.

“It’s no problem.” He whispered. “Not one bit.” Steve watched his two best friends for a minute with a smile before slowly pulling the door partially closed behind him so you could get as much sleep as possible… and so that the boy he knew had a crush on the girl could have a little more time with her to get the nerve to finally ask her out. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I wish I had your hair.” Wanda sighed as she and Natasha worked side by side, twisting your long hair into an intricate braid to get it out of your way for your first training session in the four months you had been at the Avengers facility. It had been decided by both Tony and Steve when you had gone a full month with no voices around the team that you would slowly be trained as an Avenger to begin ‘wiping the red out of your ledger’ as Natasha always put it. 

“It’s not as much fun as you would think.” You said as you spun a pair of knives in your fingers expertly while watching Bucky, Clint, and Vision move the last few weights out of the way. “But I never cut it before and it would just feel weird to do it now.”

“Wow.” She said as she traded two of the pieces she had in her hand with two Nat was holding. “And it all looks so healthy.”

“Mutant hair.” Natasha said as she twisted the pieces she was given like she was supposed to and simply held them out of the way. “That was always my assumption.”

“You almost ready, (Y/N)?” Steve asked as he and Tony came into the large training room that had been cleared for you to spar with him.

“Ask the professionals.” You teased as you gestured up to the two women behind you. “I’m just along for the ride, here.”

“I’m almost done.” Wanda said as she grabbed the last two pieces from Natasha. 

“So I was thinking.” Tony said as he leaned against the rails of the slight platform at the entrance from the dorms. “Maybe we should make this a little more interesting.” Everyone in the room stopped moving and looked up at him as he gestured to you. “Give her a real challenge.”

“And what do you mean by that?” Natasha asked defensively, coming to your rescue immediately.

“Well she’s been credited as the most lethal wep… person…” He corrected quickly as the knives in your fingers came to a dead stop at his choice of word. “Training her against just one of us…”

“I’ll do it.” Bucky said instantly as he stepped forward.

“No, I will.” Natasha said. “She trained me. I know her style so there’s less chance of me getting hurt.”

“So Nat and I.” Steve said with a glance over at you for your approval.

“And me.” Tony said as he looked at Steve. “Give her a real fight instead of people who are gunna take it easy on her.”

“Hey!” Natasha shouted indignantly and you quickly reached and grabbed her ankle.

“It’s fine, Talia.” You said as you looked up at her through your lashes as Wanda twisted the braid up and pinned it into place in a bun on the back of your head. Nat glanced down at you as you set your knives aside and you gave her a subtle nod so you wouldn’t mess up your hair before it way even finished. 

“Perfect.” Tony said as he pushed on the reactor on his chest, causing a suit to appear and spread out over his track suit. You sighed when Wanda told you you were done and got up off the floor. 

“Are you sure you’re OK with this?” Steve asked.

“Have to be.” You said softly as you looked as the sleeve of the long sleeved shirt you had on. You sighed heavily before biting the bullet and just pulling it off, leaving you in a racerback tank top and a pair of stretchy work out pants you had borrowed for Natasha. You avoided looking at anyone; not wanting to see the shocked or disgusted looks at the sight of your shoulder, on your way to the middle of the room.

“Let’s go.” You said as you lifted your hands and waved your three competitors forward. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath as Tony wasted zero time. He zoomed toward you as fast as he could and you stood perfectly still until the very last second. You bent your knees and leaned back as he closed his arms around the area you just were. You grabbed his ankle on the way past and threw him down on the mat on his back.

“Come on, Tony.” You said as you prepared for Natasha’s attack that was coming. “Don’t go easy on me.” You quickly let go of his ankle and threw your arm between your neck and her legs. With reflexes unlike anything the team had ever seen before thanks to not only your training and your mutation but also the super serum that enhanced those impossibly more, you spun her around your body and dropped her on the floor beside Tony before he could even think to get up.

“Little love.” You tisked scoldingly. “Come now, Talia. You know better.” Without even breaking a sweat, you back handed Steve’s shield right out of his hand and across the room. “You know… if anyone else wants to jump in, feel free.” You taunted as you got in a momentary fist fighting match with Steve.

“Is she serious?” Clint asked as you shoved Steve back and caught Tony’s metal fix inches in front of your face.

“I… don’t know.” Bucky said slowly as you barely moved out of the way of a round house kick from Natasha while blocking a punch from Steve at the same time. Both guys watched in awe as you delivered a good punch to Tony’s suit, easily crumbling the metal with your arm before you went flying backwards from a punch from whatever enhancement he had on his suit arm.

“Watch it, Tony!” Steve shouted as you rolled to your feet and raced back into the mix with a renewed vigor the team hadn’t seen before. You lunged Tony and easily threw both of you ten feet across the room. “Wanda!” You growled and went to slam your fist into the face mask of his suit before Wanda threw you backwards off him. She held you down as Natasha jumped onto your chest at the same moment Bucky slid across the mat beside your head.

“Look at me, my star.” Nat said softly as you struggled against Wanda’s energy. “Hey, it’s over now…”

“Come back to me.” Bucky said as he brushed his thumb across your cheek. “This was a bad idea.” Nat nodded in agreement as you searched the blue and green eyes above your face. 

“OK.” You said with a sigh as you forced yourself to let go of the fight. “OK, I’m here.” You said with a nod of your head. You took a deep breath, closed your eyes, and leaned into Bucky’s touch as Wanda let off her hold on you.

“There we go.” Bucky breathed as he smiled down at you.

“She alright?” Steve asked as he took a knee beside you. 

“She’s with us.” Nat said as she brushed a few short strands of hair that had come loose from your braid back behind your ear. Steve nodded as he watched you look up between the two people hovering over you. Your heart pulled in two different directions as you looked at the woman that meant the whole world to you and the man that you were slowly but surely falling for.

“Alright.” Steve said with a nod as he pat Bucky’s shoulder. “Let’s get this place back in order.” Bucky nodded his head and gave you a small smile as Nat got up off your chest.

“Thank you for letting me watch you knock Tony on his ass.” He whispered with a smirk. “That was priceless.”

“Yea, well I’d prefer not to make it a regular thing.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“(Y/N).” Bucky said as you sat on your bed writing before you went to sleep as he laid beside you rewatching the fight from that afternoon on his tablet. “Babe, watch, watch, watch…” You smirked and looked over at the screen as you tackled Tony to the ground. “Boom!” He shouted with a laugh as he rewound it again. 

“You’re finding too much joy in that, sweetheart.”

“Yea because it was super fucking hot!” He said as he hit play again. Your hand froze over the notebook and you glanced over at him with your eyebrow raised until he realized what he said. “Shit… (Y/N)…”

“It’s OK.” You said softly with a nod. “I kinda had an idea.” He smiled as he set his tablet on the table.

“You had an idea that I would find it hot that you beat up Tony?”

“No…” You said as you set your pen in your notebook and handed it to him to put on the table as well. “I knew you liked me.” 

“Oh, did you now?” He asked. You scoffed and scooted down next to him.

“Oh, sweetheart.” You said as you crossed your ankle over your knee. “I’m older than dirt, I know everything.”

“Is that so?” He asked as he rolled on his side. “OK. If you know everything, then tell me…” He said as he reached out and walked his fingers across your stomach. “when did I first have feelings for you?”

“When you asked how many husbands I’ve had with enough jealously in your tone to wipe out an entire city.”

“I was not jealous.” He said as he pulled his hand back the slightest bit but you grabbed it before he could.

“Oh, don’t go getting shy on me.” You said as you laid down on your side in front of him. “That’s my job.” He smiled as he laid his head on the pillow he had brought over from his room which had taken up a permanent residence on your bed in the last month he had been sneaking into your room to prevent each others nightmares. 

“You’re cute when you get shy, you know that, right?” He asked as he reached up and brushed your wavy hair out of your face. His smile grew as a blush raced across your face. “See, right there.”

“Stop!” You squeaked as you hid your face in the pillow. He just chuckled and scooted closer to you.

“I don’t think I could if I wanted to.” He said softly as he ran his fingers through your hair. You looked back up at him with a smile as he tangled his fingers in your hair at the back of your neck. You searched his eyes and your smile fell the slightest bit. 

“You need to go slow with me.” You whispered as you placed your hand on his chest. “I don’t…”

“I know.” He agreed. “I have no where else I need to be.” You smirked and gently wrapped your fingers around the collar of his muscle shirt.

“Well I guess that’s a good thing for me then.” He nodded his head as he leaned forward and brushed your nose with his.

“Good for both of us.” He said against your lips before softly capturing your soft lips in his.

——

Despite the fact that it was nearly two in the morning and they were all the way across the dorms from you, you could hear Natasha and Clint arguing as if they were next door in Bucky’s room. You closed your eyes and tried not to listened as you mentally cursed your enhanced hearing, but then Clint said your name harshly and you couldn’t help but sit up to listen.

“…I swear, Natasha. Everyone sees it. All you’ve done is drool over her since we found her…”

“I do not!” She screeched back and you could hear the tears in her voice you knew she would never actually cry.

“Oh, please. You’re always with her, you only talk about the good old days with her any more, shit, you even moan her name in your sleep! If you want her, go be with her. Just quit fucking lying to me about it!” Tears welled in your eyes as you slowly pulled yourself out of Bucky’s arms and stealthily climbed over him. 

“Clint, I love you!” She said back as you walked quickly across the dorms to put an end to their fight no matter how much it broke your heart. But you couldn’t be the reason they broke up. “Yes she has a place in my heart but I love you.”

“Sure.” He said disbelievingly as you rounded the corner to their room and soundlessly pushed the door open. “You’re just saying that…”

“It’s not her choice.” You said as you crossed your arms over your chest. You met her tear filled eyes with your own and shook your head. “I don’t…” You swallowed thickly around the knot in your throat with one more shake of your head as you pleaded with your eyes alone for her to understand. “I don’t want her.” You could see her heart shatter in her eyes as you looked over at Clint with a straight face. “I’m with Bucky. I want him. Sorry if you were getting the wrong message from us but it was never the case.” You gave Natasha one last glance before forcing yourself to turn and walk away. You made it three steps before Bucky put his hands on your upper arms to stop you.

“You OK?” He whispered so Clint and Nat didn’t hear him as Natasha said ‘see, baby?’ to Clint behind you with zero heartbreak in her voice.

“I’ll be fine.” You whispered as a tear fell from your eye.

“Come on, sweetheart.” He sighed as he put his arm around your shoulder and lead you back to your room. He didn’t ask about what happened as he laid down beside you but as he put his hand on your hip, your tears fell softly on his pillow.

“It wasn’t something you talked about in my time.” You said softly as he slid his arm under the pillows and put his hand on your back. “Liking someone of the same sex… liking both sexes was very frowned upon. People were beaten and killed for being homosexual… for even suspecting it. So no one ever talked about it. And I never really looked at women that way so I just assumed I was just straight. But then I met Natalia.

I never meant to fall in love with her but I didn’t know what hit me. I was far enough out of cryo sleep that the parts of me that they fought to keep hidden were starting to seep through and after a hard day of training, where I got my ass handed to me by about five different Widows back, to back, to back, she was sent in to make sure my mutation patched me up properly. She had such soft hands…” A smile pulled at your lips at the memory and you huffed a laugh as Bucky brushed his fingers across your skin and listened. “She wasn’t the same Nat I know now. She was still young enough that there was a little spark of defiance in her… that is… before we both got wiped.” Your words fell off slightly as you looked up at Bucky, who gave you a small smile and nodded for you to go on.

“She’d sneak into my room late at night.” You said as you reached up and brushed your fingertips across his cheek. “Much like someone else I know. We’d just sit in the corner and talk until the sun came up. And one day I realized that I looked at her differently than I ever had before. I just… I fell in love with the beautiful, amazing, kind soul they tried to take away from her. But we both knew it would come to an end.” Tears raced to your eyes and you quickly looked away, causing Bucky to pull you closer and tighter. 

“Did you know adamantium can’t break? They realized that the hard way but damn did they try with anything you could imagine when they caught us. And I may not be able to regenerate limbs but they found out they could make it to the bone before I started healing the holes. It was just a matter of hours. But the real torture happened to my little love when they wiped me in front of her and put me in cryo sleep before wiping her, too.”

“OK, enough.” He said softly as he pulled you even closer. “I don’t need to hear anymore of what they did to you, baby. It’s over now.”

“I’m sorry.” You sobbed as you buried your face in his chest; apologizing not only to him but to Natalia as well. He let you cry it out and didn’t say a word until you were all cried out.

“You still love her.” He whispered flatly.

“I always will.” He nodded his head and rested his chin on the top of your head.

“Can you still see yourself falling in love with me?” You pulled away from his chest and searched his blue eyes.

“I already have.” You breathed barely audibly. 

“Thank God I’m not alone here.” He said before crashing his lips to yours.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This movie is really violent.” You said simply as you sat sideways across the single chair on Bucky’s lap watching some horror movie he wanted you to see. You scrunched your nose and cringed as you watched as the woman in whatever contraption she was in had her skin ripped off her stomach. “Scary violent.”

“Really, babe?” Bucky asked as he absentmindedly played with your hair that he had draped over his shoulder and the back of the chair to keep it out of the way of the pair of socks you were kitting for a local homeless shelter. “You’re an assassin…”

“Yea, I killed people with calculated shots and knives to the jugular. This…” You said as you gestured to the TV with your knitting needle. “…is just gratuitous violence.” You watched for only a moment longer before you shook your head and leaned into Bucky’s chest to pay attention to your knitting.

“Want me to turn it off?” He asked as he glanced down at you.

“No it’s fine.” You said with a shake of your head. “I’m content. I have like four more pairs of socks to do for that box for the shelter anyways.”

“Well if you’re sure.” He said as he kissed your forehead with a smile. “I’m gunna keep watching because I love these movies.”

“That’s because you have severe problems.” You giggled as you tapped his chin with the flat end of your knitting needle. “Serious, probably certifiable problems.”

“You love it.” He sighed as he wrapped his arms around your middle and pulled you impossibly closer. You tucked your forehead against his throat with a smile and continued to work on your socks. You were just finishing up the sock you had started at the beginning of the movie when someone grabbed your metal arm and yanked you off Bucky’s lap.

“Don’t speak.” Nat hissed at Bucky with a glance over her shoulder down her hallway. “You haven’t seen me.”

“You got it.” He said with a wave of his hand as he looked away from Natasha dragging you down to his room.

“Will you be gentle?” You asked as she practically shoved you in the door and ran in after you. 

“Why would you say that?” She asked as she pushed you up against the wall by the door. You searched her tear stained face as she frantically tried to touch every inch of you that she could. “My star…”

“Shhh…” You said softly as you quickly pulled her into your arms. “I’m here, little love…” She sobbed silently against your chest, letting you see a weakness no one else saw, and you ran your fingers through her soft, red hair. “I couldn’t let you lose him, baby girl.” You whispered against her forehead. “Love is way to precious…”

“But what about our love, huh?” She asked harshly in Russian as she pulled back to glare at you. “What does our love mean to you?”

“Talia…” You tried but she shook her head.

“You can’t just throw me away like that. Do I mean nothing to you?”

“Natalia!” You snapped as your face contorted in heartache.

“You replaced me.” She said as a scary calm look flashed across her face almost instantly. “That’s it. You replaced me in your heart…”

“Talia…”

“It’s Natasha.” She said evenly as she stormed out of the room. “Your little love is gone.”

“Natalia!” You hissed as loud as you dared after her as she ran across the living room toward her room. Your whole body started to shake violently as Bucky lurched off the chair to figure out what happened.

“What…?” Was all he got out before you burst into tears and sank down to the floor against the door frame. “Fuck… come here.” He said as he picked you up off the floor and carried you down to your room since all his pillows and blankets were on your bed. His heart felt conflicted as he lowered you down to the mattress that still sat on the floor since he was watching one of his close friends break the woman he loves’ heart for loving him.

“I’m sorry.” You cried as he laid down beside you and wrapped you in his arms. “I shouldn’t…”

“Don’t be sorry, (Y/N). I understand, sweetheart.”

“I don’t.” You sobbed as you wrapped your arms around him as much as you could and held on tight. He sighed and kissed the top of your head with a nod.

“I know, baby. Me neither.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You stood in the mirror in your bathroom, staring at your reflection, honestly wondering who you were. Natasha’s words struck deep to your core and after a restless nights sleep, you started to think about what you were doing. Were you replacing Natasha with Bucky out of connivence?

You glanced over at the man sleeping on your bed and a small smile pulled at the corner of your lips. He was sprawled out across your bed like a starfish with your pillow hugged against the side as if you were still there and the blanket was just draped over his boxer clad right thigh only. His long hair, which was his personal screw you to the US government for making him continuously cut it when he joined the Army, was fanned out across the pillow and his soft, almost unheard breaths were guaranteed to help you fall asleep in a matter of minutes.

But he wasn’t just a warm body to you; he was your rock. He could read your emotions like a book and he had already taken it upon himself to make sure that when you were headed down, he was the only one that brought you right back up. He listened when you talked and was actually curious about your life; your whole life. He wanted to know every little detail he could, from what your favorite color was and is; it used to be sunflower yellow but soft, sky blue like the very start of a sunrise won these days. He was trying to learn some basic Russian to try and help out during those now rare nights that you had flashback nightmares. He let you vent to him when Tony pissed you off and helped you pick on Steve when he was being… well, Steve. He made you laugh to the point where you were near tears just to hear the sound. He honestly reminded you so much of John.

You sat down on the floor and tried to picture your life without Bucky in it; even the idea was nauseating. You couldn’t imagine not having him to talk too at three in the morning when a memory popped up in a dream that you just had to share. It broke your heart to picture even knitting without him playing with the ball of yarn like a cat just to get you to smile. It nearly killed you to imagine going through your days without having him in them. And no matter how much you loved her, if you had to choose, you needed Bucky more than you needed Natasha. Because you were not the same person you were back then.

You got to your feet and looked in the mirror once more. You cringed as your eyes dragged down your fresh out of the shower wet body. There were no visible scars left other than your shoulder; your mutation taking care of that for you, but you could still see them in your mind. The gashes, burns, and gouges from horrors too imaginable for words. You looked back up at your face with a sigh and ran your hands through your wet hair.

“Buck.” You called out as you separated the strands and pulled them in front of your chest. When he didn’t say anything, you looked over at him. “Baby?” Your boyfriend sat bolt upright in bed and looked around the room to find you. You stepped into the door way with tears in your eyes and a weak smile. “Can you help me cut my hair?”

“What?” He asked with his brow furrowed as he brushed his hair out of his face. 

“My hair.” You repeated. “I want you…”

“No, I heard you, baby.” He said as he got up out of bed with a groan. “Why are we cutting your hair?”

“It’s not right.” You said as you grabbed a hair tie off the counter and began collecting the long locks in your slightly shaky hands behind your back. “It’s not me anymore.”

“OK. Alright.” He said as he said calmly as he pulled your hair from your hands so it wouldn’t get caught in your metal hand in your haste. “Let’s see what we can do here.” You nodded your head as he started the long process of pulling your knee length hair into a pony tail at the base of your neck. “How long do you want it, sweetheart?” You shook your head and shrugged as he found your tear filled eyes in the mirror. “Are you sure about this?” You nodded again as you grabbed his small beard scissors and held them up toward him.

“Please?” You said as he searched your eyes in the mirror. He nodded and smiled as he took the scissors from your hand.

“Alright, baby girl. Let’s do this. I’m gunna leave a little length, though.” He said as he pulled the elastic through your hair to the middle of the small of your back. He pushed his thumb into your back where he had stopped and looked back up for confirmation. “There OK?” All you could do was nod as tears fell from your eyes. “Stand up straight for me, baby.” You did as you were told as he made one last adjustment of the hair tie and crouched down behind you. Your eyes closed as he began the process of cutting at least a foot and a half off your hair. 

You didn’t look as you pictured the weight of everything you had gone through in your existence being cut away with the strands. Every ounce of pain and torture; of loss and anger. Every murder committed at your hands and at the hands of the White Wolf, even the Wolf herself; you let them all go. It took nearly an hour with the tiny scissors but when the last strand was cut, you felt more free than you had in more than a century. 

“How’s that feel?” Bucky asked as he set the pony tail aside and ran his fingers through your hair so he could even out the ends.

“Freeing.” You breathed as you wiped your your tears away. You went to look down at the pony tail and Bucky gasped.

“No don’t wiggle!” He laughed as he moved the scissors away so he didn’t cut a big chunk of your hair off accidentally. “Stay straight. I gotta fix this line.”

“Let me see then.” You said as you held your hand out for the hair he cut. You waited a moment as he cut a tiny section and put the pony tail in your hand for you.

“You know what I like about this?” He asked as he evened out another little section. “I get a better view of this cute butt of yours.”

“God, you’re such a man.” You teased as you whacked him with the pony tail in the side before putting it on the counter. 

“I would hope so.” He chuckled as he got the last little area and stood up. “Alright, what do you think?” He asked as he ran his hands through your hair and pulled it forward over your shoulders. 

“Oh, my Lord.” You said as your eyes looked at the shortened locks. “I love it!” You smiled and looked up at him as he moved you a step to the side so he could wash his scissors and hands. “Thank you.”

“Of course, baby.” He chuckled as you kissed his cheek. “Throw my shirt from yesterday on and go grab the dustpan to clean up so we can jump in the shower and get these little hairs off your back. You’ll be itchy all day otherwise.”

“You gunna help me wash my back, Buck?” You asked with a smirk on your way out into the bedroom.

“And I’ll be a perfect gentleman about it, too.” He chuckled as he dried off his hands so he could finally use the bathroom.

“Oh, I bet you will.” You giggled as you pulled your hair from the collar of the shirt and ran your fingers through it a couple times. With a smile, you told yourself that this was the start of something new in your life and you were not going to allow your past to weigh you down any more.


	4. Chapter 4

“So I got a question for you.” Tony said as he flopped down on the couch beside you while you watched ‘Gone With The Wind’ with Wanda and Bucky and pointed out all the historical inaccuracies to them and Steve, who was in the kitchen making dinner for the team. You glanced over at him with your eyebrows raised as Wanda paused the movie. “So on a scale of one to ten, how crazy do you think you are?”

“Really, Tony?” Wanda asked as she leaned around you and Bucky from her chair to glare at him.

“She’s not crazy!” Bucky yelled over her and Steve simply groaned the billionaire’s name.

“About a four.” You said with a shrug at the same time. You glanced over at Steve as he came around the kitchen island to look at you with a scowl. “What?! I have metal claws, I can’t die, and the voice in my head thinks being an Avenger is a good idea. I’m sort of crazy.”

“Perfect. She’s ready for a mission.”

“Sounds good.” You said as the other three Avengers protested loudly.

“Be in the briefing room in ten minutes. I’ll find Banner!” Tony called out as he got up quickly and walked away before anyone could verbally or physically attack him. When he was gone, three pairs of eyes turned on you.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Bucky asked as he rubbed your back. You shrugged as you stopped the movie and looked at the remote to make sure you hit the ‘all off’ button.

“Gotta find out sometime, right?” You asked as you looked over at him and Wanda. The pair of them looked up at Steve for his opinion as he came around the couches to look at you. He searched your eyes for a moment before exhaling through his nose and nodding.

“Alright. Let’s go.”

——

“Alright. What do you see?” Steve asked in the comms in your ear. You looked at the man who was waiting to buy some kind of biological weapon technology from a different man (you were only half paying attention in the briefing because you didn’t really care exactly why bad guys were being bad) and sighed.

“Bucky can’t cut a straight line.” You teased as you ran your fingers through your short hair and pulled the strands in front of you.

“Really?” Bucky asked monotonously as he peeked over the edge of the building above your head at you.

“(Y/N). Pay attention.” Steve scolded as the man you were waiting for rounded a corner three blocks down the road.

“I am.” You said as you picked up your cup of watered down coffee and downed the rest of it. “We’re moving in 17 seconds.”

“Wait, what?” Wanda asked from a few tables back.

“Bucky do you have eyes?” Steve asked as you watched the man that had thought sunglasses, a horribly applied false beard, and a hair piece was an acceptable disguise. 

“Ten seconds.” You said as you reached down with your right hand and slowly pulled a small knife from your hip.

“I’m not seeing this!” Steve said.

“Blue shirt.” Bucky said as he followed your eyes to where you were looking. “I think.”

“What are we doing, Cap?” Tony asked as his red suit caught your eye a few buildings down on the opposite side of the road.

“Five seconds.”

“There’s four people with blue shirts.” Wanda said with a shake of her head as the man approached the buyer with the neurotoxin.

“You’re missing your window.” You said as your hands itched for the action.

“Cap!”

“(Y/N), take ‘em if you have eyes.” Tony said. You lurched to your feet and threw your knife with expert precision and it embedded into the disguised man’s hand as he reached out toward the buyer. A second knife was thrown less than a second later, and trapped the buyer’s hand to the metal table. People screamed around you as you took off a run toward the first man before the rest of your team even caught up to what happened.

“Where ya goin’?” You asked as you lunged and tackled the seller to the ground. You looked up at Tony to see where he was to help when a panicked looking man a block down the road met your eyes and took off at a run in the opposite direction. Without thinking, you broke the man you tackled’s leg and took off at a run after the second man.

“(Y/N)!” Steve shouted in your ear as you launched over a car and turned on a dime to head down the alley the man was trying to get away from your down.

“I got a runner.” You called back as you hurtled over over a trash can he had knocked over and picked up your pace.

“I got her.” Bucky said as Red Wing’s shadow sailed across your head and sputtered a bit to keep up with you. The man you were chasing screamed as he tried to scale a fence but you were too fast. You grabbed the back of his shirt, threw him onto the ground, and quickly stuck your metal finger in his mouth so he couldn’t crush a cyanide pill in his mouth if he had one.

“Where are you going?” You asked as you pinned his hands to his side with your thighs as you held his chin in your hand so he couldn’t struggle..

“He’s got a gun, baby.” Bucky said in your ear as Red Wing hovered over your head.

“I saw it.” You said with a nod as the man tried desperately to bite through your finger. “What are you trying to accomplish here? You’re chewing on metal.”

“Don’t encourage.” Steve said as he came down the alley to assist.

“He’s biting me.” You said as you pulled the cyanide cap off the man’s back tooth and put it in your other hand. “Come on, I know you got one more.”

“How did you even see this guy?” He asked as you found the second cap and put it in your palm with the first. 

“Sixty years of training.” You sighed as you swept through the guys mouth once more just to make sure before pulling your finger free.

“You’ll pay…” The guy shouted before you backhanded him hard with your metal hand and knocked him unconscious.

“Yea yea.” You groaned as you got your feet under you and grabbed his arm. You accidentally broke his arm on purpose as you lifted him up off the ground and passed him to Steve. “Here you go. One bad guy.”

“Damn, baby.” Bucky said as he rounded the corner. “You broke that guys leg good!” You simply shrugged as you dropped the caps from your right hand to the ground and crushed them with your heel.

“Bad guys deserve bad thing happening to them.” He smirked as he stopped in front of you and looked down at you.

“Who knew someone so tiny would be such a little spit fire.”

“Watch it, Barnes.” You laughed as you pushed his shoulder and took a step around him to head back to the rest of the team. 

You all completely missed the sniper across the street in the third floor corner window.

Your body was thrown back at least twenty feet as the thirty caliber bullet slammed into the center of your chest. You felt your lungs collapse and your spleen rupture as you started to convulse on the ground because your body was deprived of air.

“(Y/N)!” Bucky screamed as Tony blasted through the window and tackled the man that shot you to the ground. You sucked in wet breaths as fast as you could as tears welled in your eyes.

“B-b-b…” You tried as you tried to push yourself away from the mouth of the alley only to realize the bullet must have hit your spine because you couldn’t feel your arms or legs. 

“No, it’s OK. It’s OK, baby girl. Don’t talk.” Bucky said with a shake of his head as he tried to wipe the blood pouring from your mouth away. Tears fall from his eyes rapidly as he put his hand on the center of your chest in a vain attempt to keep the blood in.

“I… I love… you…” You gasped as your vision started to tunnel from the blood loss.

“I love you, too baby girl. But you’re gunna be just fine.” You nodded your head subtly and took one final breath as his blue eyes disappeared into the darkness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Soft beeping woke you up an unknown amount of time later and you groaned in pain. You heard someone lurch to their feet beside you and you opened your eyes in the dark med bay room.

“My star…” Natasha said softly as she sat down on the bed beside you and picked your hands off your stomach.

“Ow.” You moaned when you took a too deep breath.

“Little breaths, sweetheart.” She whispered. “What were you thinking, (Y/N)?”

“Obviously I wasn’t.” You breathed as you looked over at her. “Water?” She nodded and leapt to her feel to get you a cup of water, letting you see Bucky, who was passed out on a chair behind her. You took a breath to call his name but Nat came back before you could.

“Let him sleep.” She said as she sat back down and held the water cup and straw out for you. “He’s had a rough four days.” You nodded slowly and drank greedily, causing more pain to rip through your chest. You gasped for air when you were done and cringed.

“Damn I don’t remember it sucking this bad before.” You said as you wiggled your toes just to make sure you still could.

“It was a big bullet, close range.” She said as she set the cup aside and brushed your hair back behind your ear. “Bruce actually had to go in and get the bullet out himself because we were scared with how long…”

“Talia, why are you here?” You asked as you laid your head back on the pillow and looked over at her. Her mouth snapped shut and she looked away from you but her thumb worried the backs of your knuckles frantically. 

“I told her to come.” Bucky sighed behind her as he adjusted his head on the chair and kicked his feet up on your bed. He looked around the redhead and smiled at you. “Welcome back, baby.”

“Thanks sweetheart.” You said as you smiled at him. He blew you a kiss and laid his head back on the chair so Natasha could finish.

“Tell her.” He said as he pointed at you and closed his eyes. You cocked your eyebrow and looked back at the slight blush that raced across Nat’s cheeks.

“I was wrong.” She whispered as she looked down at your hands.

“You think?” 

“I shouldn’t have said…”

“No, you shouldn’t have.” You said as you tried to pull your hands away for her to scramble to keep her hold on them.

“Star, please.” She begged. You sighed and gave up trying to pull your hands away. “You hurt me. I know why you did but it still hurt. You’ve been the only person I have ever truly loved and I didn’t realize it until you came back. Clint saw it… everyone saw it. But then you said you didn’t want me and I just… I just…”

“OK, OK.” You said as you pulled on her hands. She quickly laid down on your stomach as carefully as she could, closed her eyes, and visibly relaxed in relief. You ran your fingers through her hair, sighed, and cringed in pain. You looked over at Bucky, who nodded slowly and held up one finger for you to wait. With a nod, you looked back at Nat’s peaceful face.

“I broke up with Clint.” She whispered as she opened her eyes to look at you. “I don’t love him…”

“Little love…” You said as your hand froze in her hair.

“I know… you’re with Bucky.” She said with a nod as she looked down at your hand in hers. She stayed silent as she played with the digits and Bucky sighed.

“Alright, we’re getting nowhere here.” He said as he got up and moved to the bed beside your hip. “Look, do you love me?” He asked as he cupped your jaw in his hands. You nodded your head and tears welled in your eyes as fear filled your soul. “And we know you still love Nat.” You nodded subtly and Bucky quickly continued as he read the panic in your eyes. “Alright then. So there’s lots of love to go around. Now, I don’t know if you know this but I am a full blooded, testosterone driven man who happens to find girls making out with girls especially if one of those girls is my girlfriend, extremely hot.”

“Bucky!” You hissed before cringing.

“Careful!” Nat scolded as she sat up.

“Easy, baby girl.” Bucky said at the same time as he moved his hand on your chest over the spot you were shot to apply the slightest amount of pressure. “Look, my point is, I love you. I know you two love each other. And if you want to be with Nat AND me I’m not gunna stand in the way of love. But I have conditions.” You cocked your eyebrow at him as he carefully pulled his hand back and ran it through your hair. “First, I’m yours. Nat is yours. But Nat and I are not a thing. Second, no secrets. Period. Third, and this one is purely selfish. I’d like you two to wait on hooking up until I at least get a chance to make love to you but…”

“You’re a goon.” You laughed as you reached up to pull him down to you carefully. You gave him a kiss and tangled your hand in his hair.

“Well.” He said as he pulled away and gave you one more kiss to punctuate it. “I figure I could share ya and possibly get to watch some free porn or I could be a complete dick and kill love. And this was my idea, just so you know.”

“He just wanted to watch us make out all the time.” Natasha said with a smile as she kissed your metal fingers and looked up at you through her lashes.

“But it’s up to you, baby. And I don’t want you to think that you’re cheating on me if you say yes or if I’ll be mad if you want this… I just… I don’t want to see you upset about this anymore, (Y/N). You deserve the world, love. And that’s what Tasha and I wanna give you…”

“For as long as you’ll let us.” Nat said with a smile as she got up to lay on your right side so he could lay down on your left.

“OK.” You said with a smile as you kissed her forehead. “But no fighting.” You looked between the two of them. “Only love. You get jealous? Tell me or tell each other. You’ll both lose me if this starts fights.” They both agreed as Bucky laid down beside you and put his hand on your stomach.

“Go back to sleep, baby.” Bucky said as he kissed your shoulder. “Still got another day or so of healing to go.”

“And no more missions without both of us.” Nat said as she curled into your side and put her hand on your shoulder before she began muttering angrily in Russian about getting phone calls about you being dead.

“You two are gunna need to teach me Russian.” He mumbled as he closed his eyes and got comfy.

“No more talking.” You whined as you laced your fingers with theirs. “I’m trying to heal myself here.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“We’re gunna need a bigger bed.” Bucky said as he and Nat both officially moved their stuff into your room since it was the biggest of the three of your rooms by a whole six square feet. You watched from the bed, which was still on the floor but now back in the middle of the wall as he moved the small, three drawer dresser you had that was all but empty out of the room so that he could move Natasha’s tall, six drawer dresser in between your long one and his medium sized, four drawer one where your book shelf used to be. 

“See I think this is the perfect sized bed.” You said as you stretched out on the mattress and watched him try to man handle the dresser into the doorway while Natasha organized the closet so that Bucky’s shirts separated your clothes from hers even though that would never last. “And I think it’s easier to move heavy stuff if you take that sweaty shirt off.” He huffed a laugh and glanced over his shoulder at you as he yanked the dresser into the room.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” He asked as he got the two legs closer to him onto the dark grey carpet with one more yank.

“Very much so.” You giggled as you propped your head up on your hand despite the slight pull in your chest. “I’d also like you to just let me help you…”

“No.” Both your boyfriend and girlfriend said at the same time without looking away from what they were doing. 

“You are bed ridden.” Nat said as she grabbed the last group of her hangers and shoved them into the closet. “You had a watermelon sized whole in your chest not two weeks ago.”

“No heavy lifting.” Bucky growled as he finally got the dresser where he wanted it. “Jesus, what do you have in there, bricks?” He asked as he glanced over at Nat as she closed the closet doors. 

“Dildos.” She said without missing a beat as she went out into the hall to grab the last two boxes of personal stuff she owned. Bucky’s eyes went wide and he looked over at you for confirmation.

“Hey. Girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.” You laughed as you propped yourself up on the bed.

“Mmmm I like the sound of that.” He growled as he ran over and flopped down on the bed beside you.

“You still have boxes, mister.” You reminded him as he wrapped his arms around your middle and buried his sweat covered face in your stomach. 

“I don’t wanna.” He mumbled into your shirt as you brushed your fingers through his hair.

“Faster you get done, the faster you can come lay down with me.” You reminded him. He huffed and forced himself to roll away. “But you’re gunna shower first.”

“God, you’re just a kill joy.” He said as he got up to go grab the rest of his stuff from his room while Natasha instantly replaced him on the bed with a sigh.

“We’re going to be crowded in here.” She said as she crawled over you to take her spot on the left side, closest to the windows.

“Give it time, Talia.” You said sweetly as you kissed her shoulder. “But I hate to break it to ya, but you need a shower, too.”

“You joining us?” She asked as she pulled your metal arm across her stomach with a smile.

“I think I can break bed rest for a simple shower.”

“Oh I like the sound of that.” Bucky said as he dropped his box of stuff by the door.

“Well then what kind of girlfriend would I be if I denied the loves of my life that luxury?”

“A terrible one.” Bucky laughed as he closed the bedroom door, took off his sweat dampened shirt and tossed it in the laundry basket.

“Well I definitely don’t want that reputation.” You giggled as you and Nat both got up and headed into the bathroom after him. You sent out a silent thanks to Tony’s design team for at least putting a big shower in each bathroom as you stripped down and turned on the shower. You felt Bucky’s rough hands slide across your hips and he used his body to walk yours forward into the water. A sliver went up your spine as the still chilly water washed over your skin and Bucky moved you so that he was taking the brunt of the spray as Natasha stepped in front of you and closed the shower door behind her.

“You’re getting closer.” She said as she reached up and gently ran her finger tips across the dimpled, pink flesh on your chest that shrunk in size every hour.

“Another week of taking it easy and we’ll have our girl back.” Bucky said as he took a step to the side so that you and Nat could get to the now hot water as well.

“You know I’m literally naked in front of you.” You laughed as you grabbed your shampoo. “You make it seem like I’m far, far away on a deserted island and you haven’t seen me in months.” You grabbed his hand off your hip and handed him the shampoo with a smile and then a pout. “I hurt. You have to do it for me.”

“You’re just lucky you’re cute.” He teased as you dipped your head under the water. As you were wiping the water from your eyes you felt Nat step up to your chest and pour her body wash across both your breasts.

“Well we’ll just have to help you get clean then.” She said as she found your eyes with a smile. You smiled back at her as she dragged her hands up your body to your chest and the soap. She captured your lips with hers as she spread the soap across your skin. It was only a matter of seconds before Bucky completely gave up washing your hair with his hardening length pressed up against your back side. As Nat massaged your breasts, Bucky slid his hands down to your hips. You moaned into Nat’s mouth as he pulled your thighs apart and slid his fingers between your folds.

“Mmm… does that feel good, baby?” Nat cooed as she pulled back to glance down at Bucky’s hand. She gently pinched your nipples and pulled the slightest bit. “You like being worshiped, don’t you, my star?” A whine escaped your lips and you nodded as you leaned back against against Bucky’s chest. “No.” Nat said as she gave your nipples a slightly harder tug with a shake of her head. “Use your words.”

“Yes, little love.” You gasped as she massaged your breasts harder.

“Oh, fuck me.” Bucky groaned as he rolled his hips against yours, pressing his hard length into the swell of your ass.

“Oh yes.” Nat cooed as she moved the shower head toward your chest to wash the soap away. “Our girl is absolutely submissive.”

“Talia…” You gasped as Bucky’s pace on your clit picked up even more at the news as he rut against you.

“Tell me, my star. Tell me what Talia can give to you.”

“Please…” You said as you reached out for her arm and grabbed Bucky’s wrist. “Please…”

“No.” She said flatly as she stepped right up against you and slid her finger past Bucky’s deep into your pussy. “You’ll wait until I say.”

“Oh fuck.” Bucky groaned as he grabbed your hip and rut his hips against yours; sliding the entire length of his cock between the globes of your ass. His body twitched as he held you tight to his body and Natasha glanced up at him.

“Don’t you stop rubbing her clit, Barnes.” She said as she added a second finger and pumped them into you at a steady pace. You whined as your legs began to shake as you met her eyes pleadingly.

“Natalia, please.” You begged as the panels in your arm whirled wildly when you flexed so you wouldn’t squeeze her arm or Bucky’s wrist instead.

“Wait.” You cried out and bent forward at the hips in an attempt to get away from the assault.

“Talia, please.” You begged as your whole body began to vibrate with the orgasm you were sitting on. “Please, little love, please, I’ll do anything, please…”

“Come, my star.” She said as she added a third finger and held your hip still. You forced yourself to let go of your partners and your whole body stiffened as your orgasm washed over you with a echoing scream.

“Holy fuck.” Bucky growled as he grabbed your hip over her hand and pumped his hips twice more before he spilled across your lower back with a groan.

“Good girl.” Nat praised as she gently slipped her hand out from under Bucky’s to run her fingers through your hair as you rested your head on her shoulder to ride out your high. “Such a good girl for your Natalia.”

“Thank you.” You said softly as you kissed your way up your throat to her lips. You put your left hand on her cheek and rubbed your right hand on Bucky’s arm. You gave Nat a chaste kiss before leaning your weight back on Bucky so you could catch your breath.

“Looks like Barnes is slightly submissive, too.” She breathed as she moved Bucky’s hand around your stomach so she could rinse you clean. “I could have fun with that.” He huffed behind you with a small nod as he grabbed your body wash to help clean you up as well.

“Fuck this was the best idea I’ve ever had.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Hey. Look who it is.” Bruce said as he strolled into the kitchen later that week as you made breakfast for the team since it was your week to do so. “Feels like I haven’t seen you in forever, (Y/N).”

“You just dug a bullet out of my chest cavity last month.” You teased as you grabbed a plate and served him up some pancakes and eggs.

“You know what I mean.” He laughed with a nod of thanks. “So how’s everything going?”

“It’s going.” You said with a shrug as you flipped the pancake in your pan with an expert flick of your wrist. “All healed up and ready to go back to work I guess.”

“What about the other chick.”

“The other chick is just bored.” You giggled with a glance up at him as you spooned out more batter into your pan. “She grumbles every one and a while about how I am waisting my life away but other than that she stays quiet. It’s quite peaceful, honestly.”

“Well that’s good.” He said with a nod as he chewed. “Did you get in contact with Shuri?” Your brow furrowed as you added the newest pancake to the stack as Steve stumbled out of his room as well.

“I didn’t know I was supposed to. Morning Stevie.” He mumbled ‘good morning’ and flopped down on one of the bar stools.

“She told me she emailed you.” He said as you gave Steve a fresh cup of coffee and a over flowing plate. “Which, now that I say it aloud, I realize why you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“That’s that little square thing, right?” You asked.

“I need to just forward your emails to Bucky’s phone, don’t I?” Bruce chuckled. “Well anyways, she came up with a new arm for you.” Your eyebrows flew to your hairline and you nearly dropped the pancake you were flipping. 

“A new arm.” Steve repeated as he looked over at Banner, questioningly.

“Crazy high tech.” Bruce said as he cut the last few pieces of his breakfast. “Ten times better than the one Tony was coming up with.”

“Why am I the last to hear about this?” You asked.

“Because you don’t check your email.” Bruce reminded you as you started to scramble more eggs knowing that Natasha would be the next one to wake up. You mocked his statement with a high pitched voice and smile and shook your head.

“I don’t like technology so much.” You said as Natasha came out of your room with a yawn in your yoga pants and a tank top. “There was nothing wrong with writing a simple letter.” Bruce glanced between the door Nat came out of and Steve with his eyebrow raised as your girlfriend came around the counter and kissed your cheek.

“Sit, my star.” She said softly in Russian as she took the spatula from your hand.

“I have it, Talia.” You said sweetly with a look over at her. You smiled and nodded your head as you took the spatula back. “I have it.” She rolled her eyes at you as you served her plate and passed it to her with a chaste kiss.

“Well that’s new.” Bruce chuckled as he got up with his empty plate to do his dishes. “Tell Barnes I’m adding your email to his, (Y/N). And make sure he responds to Shuri. Thanks for breakfast.” You all said soft good bye’s as he headed off toward the elevator to go over to his lap for the day.

“What does Shuri want?” Nat asked as she ate.

“She made me an arm I guess.” You said as you made a plate for Clint and set it off to the side, knowing that he wasn’t too happy with you and your girlfriend so you would have to put it by his door to get him to actually eat it. “I don’t know, I haven’t looked at my mail thing in a while.”

“Well it sounds like another trip to Wakanda.” Steve said as he finished his plate. “At least we don’t have to worry about you getting shot when we take you out in public this time.”

“Haha.” You said as you finished eggs for you, Wanda, Bucky, and Tony. “You’re so funny, Steven.” He smiled at you as he cleaned up his plate and went to get ready to work out.

“I know. Enjoy your morning, ladies.” You both said bye to him as you grabbed your plate and went to sit with Nat. She pulled your chair right up beside her like she did every morning and you shook your head at her.

“I’m right here, Talia.” You said just like you did every morning as you pat her thigh. “I’m really right here.”

“I know.” She said as she put her hand on the small of your back and ate her breakfast. “I’m allowed to fuss.”

“Every day?” You asked as you looked over at her. “You make me feel like I’m going to disappear at a moments notice.” She stayed quiet for a moment and angrily speared her pancake and you reached out and gently grabbed her hand. “Natalia Alianovna. What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?” She sighed and set down her fork as she turned toward you on the chair.

“I keep seeing them take you.” She said with a shake of her head. “They take you from me and I can’t stop it…”

“Little love.” You said as you cupped her jaw in your hand. “No one’s going to take me from you.” You gently pushed on her chin so she would look up at you. “Hey… where is my strong girl, huh? What’s going on with you?”

“I don’t know.” She sighed as she leaned forward and rested her head on your shoulder. “This isn’t me.”

“I know.” You giggled as you ran your hand through her hair. “Talk to me, kotyonok.”

“I just… I lost you once…”

“So you’re gunna stress yourself out and make me anxious every day with your worry?” You asked as you pushed her back in her chair and straddled her lap. “Does your little star have to punish you until you realize I’m not going anywhere without you?” Her frown twitched into a smile as she grabbed your hips and pulled you as close as she could get you.

“Oh, you think you could punish me, little girl?” She growled in Russian as you leaned forward and kissed her neck.

“I think…” You whispered as you nipped at her ear. “I think that you need to just relax.” She gasped and dug her finger nails into your hips as you slid your hand between your bodies and barely brushed your fingertips across her pussy. “Relax, little love. Your star is right here…”

“Take it to the bedroom.” Tony growled as he came out for breakfast. “We don’t wanna see it if we can’t join in.”

“You’re just jealous.” Nat said as you moved your hand to get off her lap.

“You will never hear me admit that I’m jealous of Barnes’ position in this situation.” He said as you sat down in your own chair and pointed to his breakfast plate.

“Oh but we both know you are.” Nat laughed as she pulled your thigh over hers and went back to her breakfast.

“Shut up.” He laughed as he leaned on the end of the counter. “I’m not jealous.”

“Yea, you are.” You and Nat said together as you finished breakfast so you could look into this Shuri email Bruce mentioned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“It’s so light.” You said as you sat in Shuri’s lab and looked at the black and gold virbranium arm she had made for you. You picked up a knife and spun it around your fingers and you tilted your head the slightest bit to the side when you could actually feel the ridges of the hilt. You flipped the knife a few inches in the air and caught it; marveling at the chill of the wind as it passed across the panels. “This is…” You tried as tears welled in your eyes as you took the few steps over to Bucky and ran your fingers across the short scruff on his cheeks. You let out a small, choked laugh as the hairs on his face ran across the micro sensors that covered every single millimeter of the arm and allowed you to feel with your left arm for the first time in seventy-six years.

“I tried to make it as realistic as possible.” Shuri said as you moved ran your fingers through his hair and let a tear fall from your eyes.

“I just…” You said as you moved over to brush your fingertips across Natasha’s soft cheek. “I just…”

“She means thank you.” Bucky said as he watched you marvel at how soft Nat’s lips were under your fingers. You blushed and pulled your hand back as you looked back at the woman who changed your life.

“Thank you.” You whispered. “This… I have no words…”

“It’s my pleasure.” She said with a smile. “I like to invent. And creating this was a fun challenge for me especially trying to reproduce and add your claws.”

“I just wish there was something I could do to repay you.” She smiled and swiped her hand at you with a shake of her head.

“You already have.” She laughed as she grabbed her flat, clear computer screen and pulled it toward you. “You made this possible.” You looked over and watched a Romanian security video of you kicking the Black Panther in the stomach and sending him flying backwards into a car. Your face flushed red as the clipped video gif repeated itself over and over again. 

“Oh, my Lord.” You gasped as you covered your mouth in shock.

“I thought I told you to delete that.” T’Challa said as he came into the room with Tony on his heels.

“T’Challa…” You tried but he simply chuckled and shook his head.

“It was a fight for your life, (Y/N). I expect nothing less from a worthy opponent.” You gave him a small smile as he said something to his sister hurriedly in Xhosa and gestured to his watch.

“Alright, kids. Time for us to go.” Tony said as you watched the Royal’s faces change as if they were getting ready for a fight.

“I’ll help.” You said as you took a step past Tony and looked at the King. “Whatever it is, I’ll help. Please, your Majesty. It’s the least I can do after everything you have done for me.”

“And she obviously comes as a package deal.” Bucky said as he took a step forward with Natasha a half second behind him.

“You helped the love of our life and we’ll gladly help you in return.” Natasha finished for him with a small bow of her head.

“We couldn’t ask that…” T’Challa started before his sister whacked his side.

“I want to see my arm in action! Let them help.” T’Challa looked at Shuri with his eyebrows raised before nodding his head in agreement.

“Thank you. But we must go now; mercenaries don’t wait for the good guys.”

——

Natasha didn’t know how it happened. She remembered fighting a man that had been trying to get to the virbranium supply that Wakanda had to sell it on the black market. She remembered every punch and every kick she threw. It was just another mission for her and she had been on thousands. But as she sent a powerful shock from the widow’s bite on her uniform, she heard you yelp and her heart felt like it stopped.

Her head whipped in your direction to come to your aid as her worst nightmares came true right in front of her eyes. In slow motion, she watched one of the three men you were fighting slam a long bowie knife into your back entirely too close to your spine for her liking. She felt her blood go cold and she couldn’t focus on anything going on around her as you fell to your knees but her vision tunneled before she could watch you rip the knife out and impale the man that stabbed you with it and your metal claws. 

“Star…” She whispered softly as she took a step in your direction, missing the man that was running toward her with a knife raised.

“Natasha!” Bucky roared as he flew down directly in front of her and shot the man that was trying to take advantage of her distraction. She startled a bit as she looked up into Bucky’s blue eyes. “She’s fine! Get your shit together!” Getting the proverbial slap in the face that she needed, Nat shook herself out of her daze and shot at another man that was running toward her as Bucky headed back into the air for aerial support.

The fight was short and sweet but it was very bloody. Bodies littered the dirt road you were on but thankfully, your side was all standing not even worse for the wear. As you helped T’Challa’s amazing warriors clean up, Nat took a moment to step into the tree line to collect herself.

“Hey.” Bucky said softly as he came up behind her with a concerned look on his face. “What the hell was that?” Nat shook her head and avoided eye contact with him as she watched you throw two bodies into the back of a truck to dispose of later.

“Nothing.” She claimed but he wasn’t buying it.

“Nat…” He sighed as he stepped into her view and leaned down to meet her eyes. “Look, I get it, trust me. Of all the people in the world, I get it. I can’t lose her either. But she’s not just a super soldier, she’s also a mutant. She literally can’t die. But you and I? We can. I know you’re terrified that someone’s gunna come and take her from you and I know you’re terrified that she could turn and become the Winter Wolf again and leave… but what kind of life are you gunna have with her if you spend every waking moment of it worrying that the moment you’re in is the last? 

I thought the same thing when I first started falling for her. She was going through those horrible nightmares where she would wake up screaming in Russian. Every single time I though ‘this is it. This is the one that’s gunna turn her and she won’t come back to me and I’ll never be able to tell her I love her.’ But I was wrong. And I realized that if I lived in fear of losing her, I’d never be able to love her the way that she needs.

I know you wanna take care of her, sweetheart; that’s all both of us want. But unfortunately, she doesn’t need us out here. She’s more than capable of handling her own and taking care of our asses as well. So we gotta do what we have to to take care of her when she does need us. And that means not zoning out mid-fight to come to her rescue when our own asses are on the line, right?” Nat huffed a humorless laugh and nodded as she sniffed.

“Yea.” She said with a nod. The pair of them glanced over at you as you jokingly flexed your metal muscles for T’Challa and his general, Okoye with a playful smile on your face. They both smiled as Tony came over and jabbed your blood covered stomach with his fist, causing you to burst out laughing. “She’s so amazing.”

“Yea, she really is.” Bucky agreed as you showed T’Challa something on your palm and brushed your fingertips across it a couple times.

“Hey, think you could take care of her tonight?” She asked softly as she forced herself to look away from you. “I just… I need to get my head out of my ass and being around her makes that hard to do.” Bucky nodded slowly as he looked down at one of his best friends.

“You’re not leaving her, right?” He asked hesitantly. “Because if you hurt her…”

“I’m not leaving.” She reassured as she pat his arm. “I swear. I’ll be in our borrowed bed before the sun comes up. Promise.” He nodded as you called your partners’ names and waved them out of the trees with a stunning smile.

“Alright. Be careful, OK?” He said as the two of them headed out of the trees toward the trucks to head back into the security force field around the city.

“Always.”

——

“Wait, where’s Talia?” You asked as Bucky walked you into the room you were staying in in Wakanda for the night so that Nat and Tony could get some sleep before they flew back to New York.

“She’s alright, baby girl.” He said as he pushed the door closed behind him with his foot. “She’s going through some things right now…” You sighed and nodded your head as tears welled in your eyes.

“She’s leaving, isn’t she?” You asked as you grabbed the clean clothes that had been set out for you by someone that worked in the palace. 

“Hey, how could you even think that?” Bucky asked as he spun you around in place and put his hands on your shoulders. He used his bent pointer finger to raise your chin so you would look at him and bent down to your eye level. “I promise you, she’s not leaving. She just needs to get her head out of her ass. Her words, not mine.” You huffed a humorless laugh and wiped the tears off your cheeks.

“She’s scared.” You said as Bucky took the clothes from your hands and set them back down on the bed. “She’s afraid she’ll lose me again…”

“I know, sweetheart. I talked to her.” Your hope filled eyes looked up at him as he pulled off your dirty shirt and tossed it on the floor.

“You did?” 

“I did.” He said as his fingers worked the buckle of your belt. “She’ll be OK, baby. Just give her time.” He popped the button on your jeans with a smirk and pulled down the zipper slowly. “Now, are you taking a shower alone or do you need me to help wash your hair?”

“Oh you have to do it.” You said with a smile as he slipped his thumbs in your pantie line and pushed them and your dirty jeans down. “You’re better at it.”

“Yea?” He huffed as he took off your bra and walked you back toward the ensuite bathroom. “Well how ‘bout that since I love washing your hair.” You hummed contently as you ripped off his shirt with your left hand and undid the button and zipper of his jeans with the right. He stepped under the rain shower head and turned on the water, which heated up in seconds as he kissed you passionately. 

Your arms slid around his neck and he ran his fingers through your hair, giving it a little pull at the roots each time to draw out the little moan he loved so much. You started to kiss down his throat as he washed your hair. He groaned as you dragged your fingertips down his spine and over his hips.

“Baby… uunnn, fuck baby. You- you want this?” He asked as you wrapped your new hand around his cock. You had never been past this point with him before; always getting nervous and backing out out of an unknown fear. You nodded your head and looked up at him with a smile.

“I want you, Bucky. I need you.” He nodded and shut off the shower with an award winning smile.

“Well we’re gunna do this right then.” You whined in protest as he pulled your hand away from his cock but he quickly picked you up and threw you over his shoulder.

“James!” You squealed with a laugh as he carried you out of the bathroom to the king sized bed.

“Hush!” He snapped harshly as he spanked your ass, causing you to almost instantly to slip into a submissive mind set. You moaned as he tossed you down on the bed and smirked down at you.

“You gunna be a good girl for me like you are for Talia, baby girl?”

“Yes, Sir.” You said with a nod as he climbed up the bed so he was hovering over you.

“Good girl.” He said with a smile as he ran his hands up up your sides and your arms until he was at your wrists. He moved them above your head and put a pillow over them. “Keep ‘em there. And don’t you dare rip that pillow or I swear, you’ll regret it.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“James in the bedroom.” He said as he brushed your wet hair back behind your ear. “Sir is making me feel old.” You smirked and nodded your head as he slid the backs of his finger tips back down your sides.

“Yes, James.” He moaned as he cupped your right breast in his hand.

“Good girl.” You whimpered and arched into him as he dragged his teeth across your breast and pulled your nipple into his mouth. His eyes watched your face as he teased your peak and used his left hand to force your hips down to the bead. You dug your fingernails into your palms so you wouldn’t give into your need to touch as he switched and gave the same treatment to the other side.

“James, please…” You begged as you pushed against his hand with your hips hard enough for him to feel it but not hard enough to actually move. “I need you.”

“What do you need from me, baby?” He cooed as he started to kiss down your stomach at a glacial speed. His fingers followed his path down your side as he watched your face and waited for your answer.

“I need…” You tried as he licked a stripe from your navel down to just above your pubic mound. You whimpered and jerked against him as he paused right where he was and sucked a hickie into your skin.

“Words, baby girl.” He growled as he lightly scratched his nails over your hips and down your inner thigh.

“I need!” You said loudly as your back arched off the bed and goosebumps rose on your skin. “Please, I need to cum in your mouth. Fuck, please!” He let out a guttural groan and instantly gave in to your request. Your whole body shook and he had to grab your thighs when they jerked around his head.

“Fuck (Y/N), you taste like heaven.” He moaned as he laid down flat on the bed and rolled his hips slowly against the satin bed spread to get some friction.

“James…” You moaned as you looked down your body to watch him lick a long stripe from your entrance to your clit. He hummed against the small bud, sending ripples of pleasure through your body before sliding his middle finger into you. “Oh fuck… Bucky can I please touch you?“ You begged as your fingers curled around the pillow.

“No.” He said simply as he added a second finger and dragged his teeth across your clit. You cried out as he curled his digits and dragged them against your g-spot at a steadily increasing pace. Your chest heaved as you grasped your hands together while the coil in your stomach wound tight. As your walls began to clamp down around and just before you were about to ask, he sucked your clit between his lips and shook his head.

“Wait.” He said with his teeth around the sensitive bud as he looked up at you and swept his tongue across your clit. “You better wait.” You shouted in protest as your body began to shake and your toes curled. In response, Bucky simply chuckled making waiting to come so much worse.

“That’s right, baby girl. Be a good girl.”

“James, please!” You begged as you grabbed the edge of the headboard and pushed your fingertips into the fabric covered wood to ground yourself. “Please let me come. Please, baby I’ll be good. Fuck, fuck, fuck, please…” He let out a drawn out hum as he looked up at your red, sweat covered face and after a few more moments of begging, he nodded.

“Come now.” He groaned as he sucked hard on your clit and pumped his fingers faster. He held your thigh down as you let your orgasm slam into you. Your body shook impossibly harder and you swore your way out of hell as he carried you through your high with a mouth that could possibly put even Natasha to shame. You panted and twitched as he lapped up every last drop of cum you had to offer and before you could even catch your breath, he pushed his thick length into your quivering walls with one long thrust.

“Oh fuck.” You said simultaneously as you moved your hands to hold his arms. He quickly moved his arm and spanked the left side of your ass.

“Put ‘em up.” He growled as you clenched around him and pulled him impossibly deeper into your pussy.

“I’m sorry! Fuck, I’m sorry, baby!” You cried as he spanked the other side of your ass to make it even.

“Keep, ‘em up or I stop.” He said as he hooked his arms under your knees and pushed them up toward your chest.

“Yes, James.” You gasped at the perfect stretch as he rolled his hips against yours and bit his lip to keep from coming. 

“Jesus, you’re so fucking tight.” He moaned as he rested his forehead against yours.

“James, please move.” You begged as you lifted your hips in the small space he gave you. You squeezed your walls around him and he fell to his elbows. He captured your lips and picked up a harsh yet steady pace. You moaned into his mouth as you fought the urge to wrap your arms around his neck. He pulled away and kissed down your neck until he began to suck another deep purple mark on the left side of your throat.

“Baby, please. I need to touch you.” You begged as you gripped the pillow for dear life. Bucky hesitated for a moment as he moved up to leave his mark just below your ear before nodding. You let out a groan of relief and wrapped your arms around his body; falling in love with the feel of his sweat covered back and the muscles rippling under the sensors of your new arm.

“God, you’re pussy is amazing.” He moaned. You dragged your nails up his spin he brought you to the edge with each deep thrust. 

“James, can I come?” You pleaded as you clenched around him to hold off your release. “Please, can I come?”

“Wait, baby girl. Almost…” He growled as he reached down between your bodies and began rubbing small circles on your clit. You screamed and clenched around him, which is apparently just what he was looking for. “There… come, (Y/N). Come on my dick.” You screamed his name as he rolled his hips even faster in a nonsensical rhythm and came with a roar. Your whole body shook and you hugged him closer as your pussy rocked his world. With sleepy movements, He let go of your legs and rested his forehead on yours.

“Damn, Buck.” You gasped as you panted to catch your breath. “Just… fuck.” He chuckled and nodded in agreement as he kissed your chest.

“Yep.” He propped himself up on his elbows and looked down at you with a content smile. “I love you, (Y/N). So fucking much.”

“I love you, too, James. More than you can ever know.” He reached up and ran his thumb across your cheek with a smile.

“Oh, I know.” He said as he searched your eyes. “God, do I ever know.”


	5. Chapter 5

You were woken up a few hours to something brushing down your nose. Your brow furrowed and you groaned as you forced your eyes open.

“Hi beautiful.” Natasha whispered as she pulled her hand back to her chest and looked across the pillow at you with a smile.

“Little love.” You breathed with a smile as you put your arm and your leg over her to pull her closer to you. You hummed contently as she fit herself against your still naked body perfectly and wrapped her arm around your waist under Bucky’s. “Feel better?” She nodded as she tucked your head under her chin.

“Much.” She said with a smile obvious in her tone as she ran her fingers through your hair in the space between your body and Bucky’s chest. “I love you, moya zvezda.” You pulled back to look at her with a sleepy, bright smile.

“I love you, Natalia. Always and forever.” She smiled at you and gently reached up to cup your jaw in her hand. Her lips met yours softly and you hummed against her lips before deepening the kiss. After a few moments, you felt Bucky gently push you off his arm under your head.

“I love you but you’re not fucking on my arm.” He groaned as he rolled away from you. Nat took that as her cue to take control and pushed your shoulder back to lay you in the warm spot Bucky just was.

“Were you a good girl for Bucky?” She asked as she straddled your hips and sat up to take off her tank top.

“Yes, Talia.” You moaned as you gripped her hips and ground her into yours. She smiled at you and tossed her shirt aside as she rolled her hips against your pelvic bone.

“Good girl.” She said before leaning down and capturing your lips in hers. Heat flooded your core and you brushed your fingers across her panty covered center. She smirked against your lips as you pushed the fabric to the side and brushed your fingers across her clit.

“Mmm… this all for me?” You asked as you swirled your finger in her slick and rubbed it across her clit. “So wet already.”

“Can’t help it.” She gasped as you teasingly dipped the tip of your finger in her tight core.

“I think we can get rid of these.” You said as you ripped off her panties. You tossed them away with a smile as you grabbed her hips and put pressure on them. “Come up here.” She crawled up your body on her knees with a small laugh.

“Someone’s needy.” She said as she grabbed the headboard for balance and lowered herself down on your face.

“Oh, I can never get enough sex from the two of you.” You said against her lower lips as you looked up at her in the dark room. You wrapped your hands her thighs to pull her down even more as you licked a long, slow stripe between her lips. She moaned and gently rolled her hips as you did it again before sucking her clit between your lips and brushing your flat tongue over it.

“Fuck, (Y/N).” She gasped as she reached down to grip your hair in her hands to get the upper hand but you weren’t exactly ready to give it up yet. You ignored her silent message to keep your tongue on her clit and pointed it to sweep it as far as you could in her entrance. The resulting moan sent heat flooding to your core.

“Shit, moya zvezda. Unf… don’t stop.” She said as you returned your focus to her clit and slid your hand around to fill her cunt with your fingers. You forced her to stay where she was when she jumped slightly and added a second finger to her tight walls in retaliation. You moaned against her clit as she rolled her hips, forcing you to get the exact spots she needed and taking away all your control.

The room filled with her panted moans as she worked her hips faster. You whined against her and rubbed your thighs together for relief you knew you wouldn’t get until Nat gave it to you. But just like she always did, Natalia took her pleasure first. Not that you minded in any way.

“Fuck, baby don’t stop. Don’t fucking stop.” She groaned as she fucked your face and fingers as fast as her hips would allow. You moaned and licked her clit faster, frantically trying to bring her to her release so you could get her own. As she began to clench around your fingers, you changed your mind on giving her control and made a power move.

You added a third finger to her cunt, pushed on her stomach, and forced her back between your spread thighs. You slammed your fingers into her at a punishing pace and pinched her nipple between your metal fingers. She screamed and squirted all over your chin, which was exactly what you were aiming for.

“Fucking good girl.” She gasped as she held your head to her pussy and clenched around your fingers. You moaned against her over sensitive clit, sending a shiver up her spine. Her grip on your hair tightened and she pulled you up her body to devour your lips as her legs twitched against your hips. Without waiting, you crawled up on your knees and threw your right leg over her left and rolled your cunt against hers.

“That’s it, baby girl. Take what you need, baby.” She gasped as you picked up a punishing pace. She reached up and cupped your bouncing breast in her hand. She moaned and rolled her hips against yours as you pulled her left leg up to your shoulder. “Oh fuck, baby girl… look at your man.” You looked away from where your bodies were connected at Bucky, who had his thick cock in his hand. He was pumping in time with your hips and heat flooded your core, soaking your girlfriend in your slick.

“Holy shit. Jesus, Bucky she’s so fucking wet. She just soaked me just watching you.” Nat moaned as she cupped her breast with her free hand. “You love watching your girl fucking my pussy, don’t you?” He nodded his head with a grunt as his hand worked his cock even faster. An evil smile spread across her face as she pinched your nipple and tugged. “Don’t you dare fucking come until I’m done with her. You either.” She said as she looked up at you.

“Talia.” You moaned as you pushed on her ass to get her pussy impossibly closer.

“No.” She snapped as she slapped your breast for punishment. “You think you can take control and you’re gunna pay for it. And by default, so are you.” She said as she looked over at Bucky.

“Fuck me.” He growled as he reached down with his other hand and gripped the base of his cock.

“Nat.” You whined as you leaned forward to suck her nipple into your mouth and fucked her harder. You scraped your teeth across her breast until you got to the peak. You bit down with enough pressure for her to feel it but not enough to really hurt and twisted your head to the side. Which did exactly what you wanted it to.

“Fuck!” She yelped as her orgasm hit her like a freight train. Her whole body shook as she dug her nails into your arm. “Don’t cum!” She shouted as she rode out her own finish while you and Bucky fought to control yours. When she was done and felt she tortured you enough, she nodded. “Cum on her tits.” She demanded of Bucky as she grabbed your ass and pushed you into her harder. 

“And you can come, my star.” Bucky scrambled to his feet and let go of his cock as you came with a scream on Natasha. Hot cum splattered on your chest and he groaned loudly as she dragged your high out as long as she physically could. When your body lurched violently from over sensitivity and Bucky collapsed on the bed completely spent, Nat gently grabbed your hips and held on until you stopped rocking.

“Good girl. Such a good girl for me.” She cooed as she sat up and helped lay you down on the mattress. “And good boy.” She said with a smirk over at Bucky. She sat on her hip beside you for a moment as you caught your breath and she ran her fingers through your hair.

“Goddamn it, you two are gunna be the death of me.” Bucky sighed as he reached over and laced his fingers with yours.

“Worth it.” You said as Nat kissed your forehead and got up to grab her shirt to clean you up. “We need a bigger bed.” You breathed as you stared at the ceiling.

“I second that.” Nat said as she climbed back on the bed and wiped the cum off your chest. “And I love you, baby. But we need a bed frame.”

“Seconded.” Bucky said as he looked down at the shirt that landed on his chest. “I’m getting to old to get down on the floor to go to sleep every night.”

“I don’t wanna hear shit about getting old.” You said as you rolled over to face him so Nat could play big spoon like she loved to post sex. “I’m almost a hundred and seventy-six.”

“Cradle robber.” Nat said as she pulled up the blanket over the pair of you.

“She’s a cougar.” Bucky said as he scooted closer to your front and pulled the blanket up over him. “A really flexible, smoking hot cougar.”

“Stop that.” You said as you lay your hand with his on his stomach and pulled Natasha’s arm around your middle even tighter. “Go to sleep. You two wore this old lady out.”

“Life goals.” Nat said as Bucky put his free hand on your top thigh while Nat put her leg between yours. “Night.” You all said good night as you curled into the two loves of your life and fell asleep with a smile on your face.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The moment you stepped out of your bedroom on the day that you paid no mind to, Steve went and ruined it for you.

“Happy birth…”

“Finish that sentence and I will kill you.” You growled as you shuffled into the kitchen for coffee. He chuckled as he turned on his chair to watch you.

“Come on, (Y/N). It’s not every day that you turn…”

“Shut up, Steven!” You snapped as you threw an apple at him. He caught it easily and laughed.

“Fine. I won’t sing to you on your birthday.”

“You better not have told anyone.” You said as you grabbed your three mugs and headed back to your bedroom to lay in bed for a while longer. You pushed open the bedroom door with your foot and kicked it closed behind you. Bucky, who had been asleep when you got up, opened his eye at the noise and Nat shot up off her pillow on the far side of the king sized bed you had bought when you got back from Wakanda the month before.

“Why did you get coffee today?” He groaned as he reached out for you. “It’s your birthday.” 

“Damn you Steve.” You groaned as you put Bucky’s mug down on his table and handed Nat hers and yours so that you could climb back into bed.

“It’s a special day.” She said as you climbed over Bucky to your spot in the middle of the bed.

“Shut up.” You growled as you leaned back against the headboard and took your coffee back.

“Really Buck? You should know that at a certain point, women are no longer going to celebrate their aging.” Nat said, coming to your rescue. You smiled around your mug and leaned into her side as Bucky rolled over to look at the pair of you.

“She’s twenty five in my eyes.” He recovered with a yawn as a smile pulled at his lips. “For the hundred and fiftieth time.” You scowled as you yanked his pillow out from under his head and whacked him with it. 

“I don’t like you right now.” You whined as you curled up next to Natasha to hide, playfully. “Tasha is my favorite right now.”

“No!” He cried as he scooted across the bed toward you with a pout. “You can’t have favorites, baby.” He wrapped his arm around your stomach and buried his face in your side.

“Should I forgive him?” You asked Nat with a smile as you reached down to run your fingers through his hair. 

“Meh… I guess.” Your boyfriend instantly picked up his head with a smile and rested his chin on your ribs.

“That a yes?” 

“Yea.” You laughed as you tucked his hair behind his ear. He propped himself up on his elbow and gave you a chaste kiss before sitting up to grab his coffee.

“Thank you. Happy birthday, baby.”

“So. What time is the surprise party I know Tony is throwing?” You asked innocently as you looked at the dark liquid in your mug.

“Told you.” Bucky said as he took a sip of his coffee and sighed.

“You told her, didn’t you?” Nat said as she leaned around you.

“Did not!” He said indignantly.

“He really didn’t.” You said as you glanced over at her through your lashes. She huffed and leaned back against the headboard, defeated.

“Seven.” She grumbled before pointing at you. “And you better act surprised! Tony and I worked hard planning this party.”

“I promise I’ll be surprised.” You laughed as you turned on the bed to put your feet over Bucky’s thighs and your head on Nat’s side. “Thank you my loves.”

——

The amount of people Tony had managed to fit in the main living room of the compound was overwhelming. You stuck to one of your significant other’s sides the entire night to keep calm as person after person came up and wished you happy birthday. You realized after a couple hours of socializing that some how, Tony had managed to collect a decent sized collection of photos from your past, half of which you didn’t remember taking.

“This is unbelievable.” You said softly as Nat wrapped her arms around your middle and rested her chin on your shoulder as the pair of you watched the slideshow of your life.

“Still as beautiful as ever.” She said as she kissed your neck. Your smile grew as you turned and looked at the woman you loved.

“Thank you for doing all this.” You said softly as you put your arms around her shoulders.

“I’d give you the world if I could, my star.” She said in Russian as she cupped your jaw in her hands. “I love…”

‘Help my wife. Please.’ A voice you’d long since forgotten said over the projector speaker that had been playing the slide show. Your blood ran cold and tears welled in your eyes as the entire party got pin drop silent. You didn’t even need to turn around to know what the entire party was seeing. You dropped your hands from Natasha’s shoulders as she took a step around you to see what was going on.

‘Howard…’ You looked over at Tony’s colorless face and cringed with him as the sounds of bones shattering and mechanics whirling ripped through your entire being. His jaw clenched and tears welled in his eyes as you saw yourself in your memories walk around the smoking car after bashing Howard Stark’s face in. Maria begged for her life as you stared emotionlessly off into the distanced on the screen and crushed her windpipe in your hand. Her gurgling, gasped breath made the voice in your head that had stayed quiet for months, resurface and laugh. Suddenly, Tony lunged for you and you couldn’t bring yourself to even try to defend yourself. 

“Tony!” Steve shouted as he grabbed the man around the middle. Tony shoved him as hard as he could as the party guests all took a step back from the cold blooded killer in the middle of the room.

“You…” He growled as he stuck his arm out for one of his many suits. You dropped your head in shame as the video replayed again in the background. You knew the hit was coming before it even happened and if your jaw could, it would have shattered on the impact.

“Whoa!” Bucky shouted as he finally found his feet and ran to put himself between you and Tony. “It wasn’t her!”

“She killed them!” Tony roared as he pointed at you, accusingly.

“It wasn’t her!” Bucky yelled right back as he moved your crumpled form behind his back, protectively.

“Get out.” He said as he pointed in the general direction of the elevator. “Get the fuck out of my house!” Tears fell from your eyes as you pulled on Bucky’s arm so he would let go of your thighs and let you stand up.

“She’s not going any…” He tried but Tony was having none of it. He stuck his palm out and let the reactor charge as his face mask dropped down with a metallic clack.

“Get out.” He repeated with a scary evenness.

“It’s fine.” You said softly as you pulled your legs free. “I’m going.”

“Not alone.” He said as he stood up in front of you, making sure he stayed between you and Tony. “Natasha?” He asked with a half second glance over at her. You looked over at your girlfriend, who hadn’t tore her eyes off the screen. Your whole world collapsed as her head shook the slightest bit and Bucky quickly came to your rescue.

“Let’s go, baby.” He said as he turned and put your hand on the small of your back.

“I can’t.” You protested. Your body began to shake as you mentally pleaded with Natasha to turn around as someone finally killed the video feed.

“Walk, (Y/N).” He said as he pointed to the elevators and gave you a light push. You burst into tears and let Bucky lead you from the crowded room.

“I’m sorry.” You choked as Bucky hit the elevator button and glanced over his shoulder to watch Steve try to talk Tony off the ledge. You wrapped your arms around your chest protectively, stepped into the elevator, and tried to hide in the corner of the small box. Your boyfriend stood in the doorway until it closed and instantly moved to pull you into his arms.

“Shhh… It’s OK, baby girl. I’m here.” He cooed, not caring about the mascara running down your face getting on his baby blue shirt when you buried your face in his chest. He sighed and cupped the back of your head. “We’re gunna be OK.”

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“How is she?” Steve asked over the phone a few days after you were kicked out of your home. Bucky sighed and shook his head as he looked across the grungy motel room at you you had paid for with stolen cash.

“She’s not good.” He said, not even trying to keep his voice down since you could hear the maid cleaning three rooms down and a floor up anyways. “Nightmares are back, the voice won’t shut up, and she hasn’t said hardly anything but, ‘don’t leave me’ and ‘I’m sorry’ for days.” Steve sighed into the phone as Bucky ran his fingers through his hair. “How’d he even get that video anyways?”

“Bruce says someone sent it to him and cloned Fury’s email as the return. And Tony’s assistant, who was the one who put the slide show together, didn’t look at it before she added it in.”

“Well that was obviously was a stupid move.” He said as he watched you simply stare at the knife you had embedded into the bedside table in front of your face and picked up his beer. “Tony’s still pissed?”

“He’s locked himself in his shop and refuses to talk to even Pepper.”

“Jesus, this is bad.” Bucky said as he took a long pull of his drink. Steve opened his mouth to agree but before even a full syllable left it, there was a scuffle for the phone.

“Bucky?” Nat asked. “Let me talk to her.” Bucky looked over at you as you closed your eyes and covered your head with the blanket.

“She’s asleep.” He lied without missing a beat. “I gotta go.”

“Don’t you hang up this phone!” She screeched angrily. “Let me talk to my girlfriend…”

“No!” He snapped back as he set his beer down on the table. “You gave up that right when you decided to stay with Tony and not come to her rescue when she needed you. You were right there, Natasha!”

“Bucky, you have no right…” Nat said but he didn’t hear the rest as you pulled the phone out of his hand.

“No, you have no right, Natasha.” You said evenly without a shred of emotion in your voice or on your face. “Don’t call back.” Before she could protest, you hung up the phone and handed it back to Bucky. You turned back and took a step over to the bed but Bucky gently grabbed your wrist.

“Just sit.” He said softly as he pat his thigh and let go of your wrist to let you have the option. You stood there, listening to the irrational thoughts in your head before stepping back over and sitting down on his lap. He let out a sigh of relief and wrapped his arms around your waist as you curled into his chest like the wounded puppy you were. He rested his chin on top of your head and turned on the TV as tears fell softly from your eyes.

“She just stood there.” You whispered as you fisted his shirt in your hand. He nodded his head and rubbed your arm with a sigh.

“I know, baby.”

“And she promised.” You sighed as you covered your face in your hand.

“I know, sweetheart.” Tears fell between your fingers as you curled up even more on his lap and held on to his shirt for dear life.

“I knew you were the only one that really loved me.” Bucky’s heart seized and his hand froze on your arm.

“Baby, Tasha loves you…”

“Don’t.” You said with a shake of your head as you sat back to look at him. “Don’t justify her actions. She made her choice.”

“OK.” He said with a nod. “Sorry, baby. I’m trying here. Not sure how to comfort my girlfriend after she gets in a fight with her girlfriend.”

“The Wolf says pizza.” You said as you laid your head back down on his chest. “And she also says to hang up the phone if that bitch ever calls back again.” He nodded his head and grabbed his phone but you reached out for his hand. “I wanna go back to Romania.” You whispered as you looked up at him. He instantly nodded and brushed his hand across your back.

“Of course, baby girl. Anything for you.” 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Did you know I can juggle?” Bucky asked with a smile as he grabbed a few apples from the grocery store right down the street from the half way decent apartment the pair of you had happily called home for the past three months.

“Why does that not surprise me?” You giggled as he began to juggle the three apples almost effortlessly. You smiled at him and rested your long sleeve covered arms on the handle of the basket on your arm. “Show off.”

“You love it.” He said as he caught the three apples. You clapped your hands slowly and laughed when he bowed dramatically.

“Well now you have to buy them.” You said as you grabbed a bag and held it out for him to put the apples in. “So I can get a private performance later.”

“Yeeeaaaa…. You just wanna see me naked.” He joked as he tied off the bag and added it to the basket on your arm. 

“Who wouldn’t?” He smiled as he stepped around you and wrapped his arms around your waist. “But you’re the only one lucky enough to see.”

“And damn it if I’m not the luckiest girl alive.” You said with a smile as you stopped in front of the tomatoes and picked through them for the perfect ones for a marinara sauce for dinner.

“Can you make me the luckiest man in the world?” He asked. “Marry me, (Y/N).” The tomatoes in your hands slipped through your fingers and landed on the floor with a wet splat as you turned in his arms with your eyebrows in your hairline.

“What?”

“Just say yes.” He said with a smile as he held onto your hips and pulled them against his. “Say yes, marry me, spend the rest of your life with me, and make me the luckiest man in the world.”

“God, you’re so freaking romantic, Barnes.” You laughed as you cupped his jaw in your hands. “Yes.” He smirked and crashed his lips with yours for a moment and almost just as quickly pulling back.

“Let’s go then.” He said with a laugh as he took the basket from you and went to put it down.

“Wait!” You said as you snatched it back with a laugh. “We need food in the house. Food, then marriage, Mr. Impatient. Besides, you can’t get quickie marriages in Romania. You have to go to like… Denmark, I think.”

“Then Denmark it is.” He laughed as he took the basket from you with a smile. “Or maybe… just maybe… we could call Steve… see if he could pick us up and we could go down to Wakanda? See if the King can expedite some things for us since your birth certificate is none existent and all. That way you’re little Stevie could be there, too?”

“James Barnes. How long have you had this planned?” He smirked over at you as he set the basket down on the counter for the cashier. 

“Truthfully? Since before we left New York. I was just waiting until I got my beautiful wife to smile again with my silly antics.” You blushed and pulled some cash from your jeans pocket. 

“You’re an idiot.” You giggled as you payed for your groceries.

“I’m you’re idiot. Forever and ever.” You smirked and gave him a chaste kiss as he took your change and grabbed your bags.

“Alright. Call Steve. But swear him to secrecy. I don’t want anyone hearing about this, OK?” He nodded as he laced his arm through yours and lead you out of the store.

“Secret’s safe with me.”

——

“So you got her to say yes?” Steve asked the second you got off the jet T’Challa had gladly sent up to Romania for you. “Took you long enough to ask.”

“Shut up.” Bucky chuckled. He hugged his friend and his smile instantly dropped. “Is she here?”

“Still MIA.” Steve responded as you said hello to the King and Shuri. Bucky nodded, glad that he wasn’t battling for his future wife’s attention on his wedding day. No matter how much he loved Nat as a friend, he despised her for what she did to you. “Come on.” Steve said with a pat on his shoulder. “Let’s get you hitched.”

——

“Wait, is this really happening?” You asked Steve as you stood just inside the palace, looking out at the darkened landscape as you waited for the start of the sunrise. “She… I… we…” You tried as you held up your sleeveless lace dress and took a step back.

“Hey, look at me.” Steve said as he grabbed your arm so you wouldn’t run. “Hey.” You looked up at him with wide eyes and he shook his head. “Don’t listen to her, listen to me.” You nodded your head as he cupped your jaw in his hands. “Do you love him?”

“With all my heart.”

“Do you think he loves you?” You smiled and happy tears welled in your eyes. 

“With all his heart.”

“And do you think that he will be there for you, better or worse, thick or thin, voices or not?” You barked a laugh and shook your head.

“Always.” 

“Well that’s marriage right there, sweetheart.” You smiled as he pulled you forward to kiss your forehead. “Now go get your man. Sun’s coming up.” You looked over out the window as the sky finally started to show it’s beautiful palette of colors, just like that first time he took you flying. You took a deep breath and fixed your boho chic dress that you found literally last second in a store in the city so that it laid out around you. Steve fixed the flower crown that some of the local kids made for the celebration and took your arm. You took a deep breath and nodded, letting the two people at the double doors know you were ready.

“I’d tell you this was the last chance to run but I know you’d take me up on that offer.” Steve joked as he walked you outside. You giggled and nodded as the end of the aisle came into view in the dim lit sky.

“I want this.” You said with a nod.

“I know you do.” She said as he paused at the end of the runner so that the cute little flower girl could have her moment in the spotlight. “I’ve never seen you this happy and trust me… I could consider myself an expert on you.”

“That’s not creepy.” He smirked down at you and took a deep breath as the music began to play to signal it was your turn to go. Your hands began to shake with nerves and you almost stumbled on your own feet. But as you rounded the corner and looked at the gorgeous man in front of you, everything made sense.

You thought you knew what love was when you were with John and you thought you knew what it was to be in love with Natasha. But nothing in your entire existence prepared you for the love you felt for James Buchanan Barnes as you looked down the aisle at him. Tears filled your eyes and had it not been for Steve holding you up, you were positive that your knees would have given out right there. You covered a choked laugh with your hand as he reached up and wiped a traitorous tear from his cheek and forced himself not to run to you to make the walk go faster. The people around slipped into the early morning shadows as Steve kissed your cheek and passed your hands to Bucky with a smile. 

“I get to marry you.” You whispered as you reached up and brushed a stray piece of hair from his bun behind his ear.

“I’m still the winner here.” He said with a huge smile as he laced his fingers with yours. As the officiant began the ceremony, you kept your tear filled eyes on his, wanting to remember the gorgeous blue they were in that moment forever. Needing to remember the way his eyes crinkled because of his wide smiles and the adorable dimples through the scruff on his cheeks. But you kept coming back to his eyes that told you that you would be safe for the rest of your life with him. Eyes that promised so much without even needing to say a word. Eyes that conveyed more love than you thought was even possible. His smile grew even bigger and he huffed a laugh.

“Hey… this is the part you gotta listen to, baby…”

“Oh!” You said as you shook yourself out of your stare and looked over at the officiant with a bright red blush. “Sorry.”

“I need you to repeat after me.” He repeated with a smile. You nodded and looked back at Bucky and forced yourself to pay attention and say your vows. You listened intently as Bucky repeated the same words; promising that you would be his and he would be yours until your dying breaths. Rings were exchanged; yours went on your right hand until Shuri could figure out a way to permanently affix it to your metal finger and after choked, laughed I do’s, you got to kiss the love of your life just as the sun rose above the tree line behind you. As cheers filled the air behind you, Bucky pulled back to rest his forehead against yours.

“My wife.” He whispered as he cupped your cheek in his hand.

“My husband.” You whispered back as you gave him another chaste kiss.

“Let’s hear it for Mr. and Mrs. James Barnes!”

——

You felt weightless as Bucky danced you around the make shift dance floor that had been set up on the landing pad behind the palace despite the fact it was only nine in the morning. He kept your fingers laced with his on his chest as he sang to you and did everything he could to make his new wife laugh. You were in heaven and you never wanted to leave.

“Let’s stay here.” You said as one song faded into the next for the few people that were still milling around that didn’t have to go to work that day. “Permanently. We could find a little place somewhere on the edge of town so Tony won’t know we’re here if he shows up. Get real jobs like real, upstanding citizens. We don’t really have anything to go back to in Romania and we’ll be safe…”

“Will you be here?” He asked with a smile.

“Like I’d go anywhere without my husband.” He smiled, loving the sound of his title coming from your lips and nodded.

“Then that’s all I need. If you wanna stay, we’ll stay, baby girl.” You giggled as he spun you in a circle and pulled you back into his chest with an award winning smile on his face. “Want to go on a honeymoon first? Maybe travel the world…?”

“I don’t need a honeymoon, Bucky. I’m happy right where I am.”

“Hey, are you gunna jeopardize the bride all day?” Steve teased as he put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “I’d like to dance with my…”

“Finish that sentence, Stevie.” You said as you laid your head on Bucky’s chest with a smirk. “Girl, best friend, mother…”

“Best friend works.” He chuckled as Bucky kissed the top of your head and passed you off to his friend with a smile as Queen Ramonda came over to offer her congratulations and dance with the groom. Steve spun you in a circle and smiled down at you proudly. “You look so beautiful.”

“Aww Stevie.” You cooed as he reached up to fix the flower crown on your head. “Thank you, for being here. I know I’ve put you in a bad position…”

“Sweetheart, I wouldn’t miss this for the world. Nothing could have kept me from being here.” You smiled and sighed as you looked at the star spangled tie he had on.

“Does he still hate me?”

“(Y/N)…” He sighed and you looked back up at him. He looked down at you and groaned as he slowly nodded his head. “Yea, sweetheart. He’s holding a grudge.” You nodded and bit your lip as you rested your head on his chest.

“We’re gunna move here for a while.” You told him as you picked your head up and looked up at him again. “Get jobs, find a place on the outskirts of town… that way if Tony shows up he won’t know we’re here and we’ll know we’re safe. But you can’t tell anyone…”

“I would never.” He said with a nod and a cocked eyebrow. “I’ve been keeping your secrets for years, remember?”

“Yea, yea.” You giggled with a smile. “And I don’t know what I’d do without you in my life, Stevie. I really don’t.”

“You’d be lost and confused.” He joked as he pulled you in for a hug and simply swayed to the music. “I love you, sweetheart. And I’m so glad you found Bucky.”

“So am I.” You said as you looked back up at him at the same time the song ended and Bucky excused himself from the Queen mother.

“Can I have my wife back, now?” He joked as he made grabby hands for you. Steve smiled and gave you a tight hug.

“Congratulations, you two. I’m so happy for you.” You both said thanks as Bucky swept you back into his arms and dipped you in the morning Wakandan light.

“I have never been happier.” You said sweetly as you brushed your fingers across his cheek. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, (Y/N). Forever.”


	6. Chapter 6

“Do you think we have enough boxes?” Bucky asked as the pair of you down the street in Bucharest to your old apartment to pack the little amount of belongings you owned to take to Wakanda. You nodded as you thumbed through the cash in the backpack you had stashed up under the floorboards of your old apartment.

“We don’t really have all that much, sweetheart.” You said as you zipped up the backpack and slung it on your back. “I think six boxes is more than enough.”

“Damn. That’s… that’s kinda sobering.” You nodded as you rounded the corner but quickly grabbed Bucky’s arm when you noticed a blonde woman standing on the stairs in front of your apartment. You pulled him back into the shadows and waited. “Think it’s a trap?”

“I don’t know.” You said with a shake of your head as you reached for the gun you had in the back of your jeans. Your fingers wrapped around the grip as the woman turned around to look down the street for someone and you exhaled sharply and let go of your gun. “Not a trap.” You said as you pulled your shirt down over your gun. “It’s Daniela.”

“Who?” Bucky asked as you continued down the street toward your apartment building.

“She had a fruit stand at the farmers market down the street from my old place. She was the closest thing I had to a friend when I lived here.” He nodded as she smiled at you sadly and leaned down to pick something up. Bucky put his hand on the small of your back above your gun until she shifted a baby carrier from her left hand to her right where you could see it.

“Breathe, Buck.” You mumbled as he slid his hand up your spine to your shoulder blades. “Daniela! How are you?”

“Hey, Sara. I knew I saw you leaving your old apartment the other day.” She sighed as her eyes filled with tears. “I need help.”

“OK.” You said with a nod as you looked around the street habitually. “Let’s go inside.” With another nod, she followed Bucky inside and up the stairs to your second floor apartment.

“Sara?” He asked you as he unlocked the door and looked over his shoulder at you.

“I read it in a book when I left DC. Didn’t know who to trust…”

“Ah.” He said with a nod as you locked the door behind the three of you and took the folded up boxes from him. “Her English is hit or miss. She’s a gypsy that didn’t have a lot of schooling so bare with me while I translate.” He nodded as he sat beside you across from Daniela. “So how can I help?” She looked between you and Bucky before looking at you.

“I have terminal cancer.” She said flatly. “Started in my lungs and spread rapidly. I found out when I got pregnant and my parents obviously didn’t want me to go to doctors.” You reached out for her hand and translated for Bucky as she continued. “But I just kept getting sicker. So I went anyways and my parents cast me out.”

“Sweetheart…” You breathed as you squeezed her hand. “I’m so sorry.”

“I need…” She said as her tears poled in her eyes and started to fall. “I need you to take my baby… and run.” You opened your mouth to translate but no words came out so you simply sat there, staring. “If you don’t… she’ll die.”

“Daniela… I can’t…” You tired as you shook your head but she quickly cut you off.

“You have to.” She begged as she reached down to show you the tiny little girl in the car seat. “Her father was a tourist and my mother would never allow the fact that she was born a bastard… and if I bring her to an orphanage, she’ll never be adopted out; no one comes to Romania to adopt a baby and the orphanages are so full. She’ll fall to the side and we all know what happens to children in some of those orphanages. Please, Sara. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t know that you’d be able to help her…”

“How am I supposed to help her?” You asked as you looked at the little girl who looked more Cuban than anything else in her young age.

“Who better than to raise a little girl than an Avenger?” She asked as she pulled down the cuff of your glove covered hand to see the metal. You looked up at her in shock, not realizing she knew about your metal arm or your true identity. “Please, (Y/N).” She asked in heavily accented English using your real name for the first time, ever. “I’m begging you.” You looked between her and her little girl and she quickly dropped your hands. “Here.” She said, switching back to Romanian as she leapt to her feet. “Hold her. Please, just hold her.”

“Daniela, I can’t.” You said as you tried to scoot back on the couch. 

“Just please!” She said loudly as she moved your arms into a cradle and laid down her little girl as tears poured down her cheeks. “Please!” Tears started to fall from your own eyes as she stepped away from you before you could hand the tiny infant back. “She’s three days old… and I only have maybe two weeks left to live.” You looked up at her as she moved back behind the chair she was in to put as much distance between her and her daughter as possible. 

“Please. Help her.” You looked over at Bucky who was looking between the three girls in the room with a confused look on his face since he maybe understood a total of five words in the whole conversation. He met your tear filled eyes and sighed.

“We’re taking the baby, aren’t we?” He asked softly. You nodded slowly as he wiped your tears away for you.

“She’ll die if we don’t.” He sighed again as Daniela stepped forward again.

“I have everything she needs for you and I saved up as much money as I could.” She said as she grabbed her diaper bag and set it on the table in front of you. “She doesn’t have any papers…”

“What’s her name?” You asked as you looked at the little girl. You glanced up at Daniela’s broken smile as she stared at her daughter. “What did you name her?”

“Anastasia.” She whispered. She leaned forward, kissed the little girl’s head, and stepped toward the door. “Y-your daughter’s things are in the car.” She choked as she forced herself to turn away. You quickly passed Anastasia to Bucky.

“I’m gunna get the stuff she has from the car. Just hold her. I’ll be right back, OK?” He nodded his head slowly as he held his new daughter a little awkwardly. You turned back to your friend with a weak smile and nodded. “Alright, let me help you.”

——

“What the hell are we supposed to do here?” Bucky asked as you walked in lazy circles around the bedroom in the palace you were staying in until you found an apartment in Wakanda with a sleeping Anastasia on your chest. “I mean, seriously?”

“What other option did we have, Bucky?” You asked as you rubbed the infant’s back. “How the hell are we supposed to say no to someone who is literally begging for our help on her death bed?”

“This is a baby though, (Y/N). What’s gunna happen if we have to go on a mission or something?”

“What, because Tony’s going to walk through that door tomorrow, forgive me for murdering his parents, and invite us to go rescue the world again? Come on. Even I know how ridiculous that is.” 

“Yea but even still…”

“Then you go.” You interrupted. “The Avengers did just fine without me before. They’ll do just fine when I choose to stay home with… with…” You hesitated as you looked down at the baby in your arms and stopped walking for a moment. You took a deep breath and let it out forcefully as you mentally accepted the fate you signed up for. “They’ll do just fine when I choose to stay home with our daughter.” You looked back up at him as his jaw snapped closed. You walked around the bed and sat down in front of him with a tight lipped smile. 

“James, you know no matter how overwhelming this is for us, there is no way you would have said no if it was one of your friends asking you to save their daughter. We had to help her; you know we did. And we just agreed last week that we were going to settle down here and become regular citizens again. Sure we jumped from newlyweds to parents faster than the speed of light… but we’re doing this together, right? And if I do get in good standings with Tony again and we go back to New York, then we’ll figure something out for our family when it comes to missions. But we can’t turn our backs on someone whose life literally depends on us.” He groaned as he leaned back against the headboard behind him.

“Let me see her.” He said as he held out his hands for Anastasia. You carefully picked her up off your chest like she was about to break at any moment and passed her off to your husband. He laid her down in the crook of his arms and a small smile pulled at the corner of his lips when she let out a tiny little squeak in her dreams. “She is so adorable.” He said lowly as he fixed the blanket around her. “I can’t even stay mad, you’re just too cute.” You crawled up the bed beside him with a smile and brushed your fingertips across the top of her head.

“She’s ours, Bucky.” You said softly as you continued to try and wrap your head around that fact. “She’s our daughter.”

“I’m a daddy.” He said with a huffed laugh as his heart melted for the baby in his arms. “Holy shit, I’m a daddy. I’m gunna spoil you rotten, Anastasia. And no dating until your forty-five.” You scoffed at him and playfully hit his thigh.

“God, you’re gunna be impossible now, aren’t you?” You teased as you brushed your finger across her cheek. “Shit, what do you think Steve’s gunna say?”

“That we’re crazy.” He chuckled as she yawned and opened her gorgeous hazel eyes that absolutely screamed Daniela. “Hi beautiful. Hi. God, she’s so tiny.”

“Three days old. Not a shocker.” You huffed a laugh as you let Anastasia wrap her hand around your metal finger, already falling head over heels in love with her. “She was born the day you proposed to me.”

“Fitting.” Bucky said with a small nod. “We all get to start our family together.”

“You ready for this?” You asked as you looked up at him.

“Are you gunna be with me?” He countered as he looked up at you. You smiled and nodded as you leaned your head against his shoulder.

“Forever. The Barnes’ family will always be together.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It surprisingly took Steve a lot longer than you expected to return to Wakanda on ‘official royal business.’ You were laying on the couch in your living room, watching four and a half month old Anastasia laugh hysterically as she swatted at the colorful, handmade yarn dolls a woman at Bucky’s job had made for her that were hanging above her head. You smiled at her as you reached out and pushed one of the ones closest to you so that it would catch her eye and laughed with her as she kicked her legs and reached for it.

The knock on your front door startled you and you quickly sat up and grabbed the gun you had wedged between the couch cushion and the back of the couch. With quick movements, you got up and walked on silent feet to glance out the window since most people who came over to visit you and Anastasia called first. You peeked out the window and let out a sigh of relief as you turned the four locks on the door and turned off the house alarm system.

“Well I’ll be damned.” You laughed as you stepped back and let a very scruffy Steve into your two bedroom, two bath apartment. “That’s a good way to get shot in this house.” He nearly tripped over his own feet as you locked the house back up, turned the alarm back on, and put your gun on the table by the door. 

“What is this?” He asked as he pointed to the little girl on the floor who was looking up at him in awe.

“It’s a baby.” You said with a shrug as you moved the arch away from Anastasia so you could pick her up. “And if we wanna get really technical, it’s a girl baby.” Steve’s face deadpanned as he met your eyes.

“Didn’t realize I became blind overnight but thanks. Where did the girl baby come from?”

“Anastasia…” You said as you balanced your daughter on your hip. “… came from Romania. Her birth mother was an old friend of mine named Daniela who had terminal cancer. Her father was a tourist and Daniela’s moms was a hardcore gypsy that surprisingly would absolutely not raise a baby born out of wed-lock no matter what her husband said. And she was a blatant racist so the mix race thing was not helping Anastasia’s case either. So, Buck and I took her. Well, we didn’t take her, I guess we officially adopted her. T’Challa’s lawyer guy helped us figure out the paper work so her official birth certificate says that we are her parents. So meet your… well technically you could meet your little sister…”

“Oh, my gosh, stop.” He laughed as he reached out his hands to hold her. “Anastasia, you said?” You nodded as you passed over your daughter.

“Anastasia Daniela Barnes. Her mom named her and we figured honoring her mom with the middle name was appropriate.”

“I like it.” He said as he sat down on the couch with her on his thighs. “Hi cutie.” Your daughter looked at him a little confused as she reached out to grab his beard. You laughed and gently intercepted.

“Bucky has to stay either clean shaven or he keeps his beard real short.” You said with a laugh. “We learned really fast that once she gets ahold of something she wants, she will not let go. We both keep our hair back in buns just to keep it out of her reach.”

“She’s beautiful.” He said with a smile as he held onto her sides so that his fingers were supporting her head even though she didn’t need it as much these days. “Now I’m curious. What is she?”

“Romanian, Puerto Rican, Guatemalan, African-American, and a splash of Scottish, Italian, and Greek. I had Shuri run her ancestry DNA when we did a full check up on her when we got her. She was born the day before Bucky and I got married and we got her when she was three days old.”

“God, she’s so cute. I can’t believe you two are parents.” You smile proudly and snagged one of the many toys off the floor.

“Me neither. It’s been a wild ride.”

“I bet.” He laughed as he watched you bop your daughter on the nose with a pink, stuffed rhino rattle to grab her attention. She laughed and reached for it as Steve looked around the living room. “Where’s Bucky?”

“At work.” You said as you handed your little girl her toy. “He got a really good job in IT at the transportation hub. He loves it. He actually should be home in an hour or so if you wanna stick around. I should probably start dinner anyways if you wanna entertain your niece.”

“I think I can handle that, what do you think?” He asked Anastasia, who simply tried to eat her rattle in response.

“Just keep your beard away from her grabby little hands.” You said with a laugh as you got up and headed to the kitchen. “She’s a sneaky little monster sometimes.”

“You can’t be a little monster.” He growled playfully as he picked her up off his thighs and slid down to the floor with her to play. “You’re too cute, right? Yes, you are.” You smiled to yourself as Steve continued to baby talk to your daughter while you got dinner ready for your family and your guest. 

With Steve distracting your daughter, you got the homemade Italian dressing marinated chicken, the fettuccini you made from scratch that morning, and the Alfredo you found a recipe for on a website called Pinterest (which was, in your opinion, the greatest thing in the entire world) cooked in no time. You were just getting everything plated when the automatic smart locks on your doors unlocked and the alarm signaled it was temporarily disengaged with a beep. You looked up at the door from the kitchen as Bucky stepped in the door with a sigh.

“Hi baby.” You said with a smile. “We have a visitor.” Bucky looked over at you as he turned the last lock before turning the other way.

“Well I’ll be damned. If it isn’t Captain America. And my little angel.” He cooed as he went over to say hi to his friend and pick up his giggly little girl. “Oh, I missed you!”

“Never thought I’d see the day.” Steve said as he got up off the floor with a laugh. “Playboy Bucky Barnes has a kid.”

“I got bamboozled by the cute.” He laughed as he kissed Anastasia’s forehead. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here on ‘official business’.” Steve said sarcastically with air quotes as Bucky came over to give you a kiss hello. “We’re trying to fine tune the Sokovia Accords and I figured I’d stop in to see how the newlyweds were doing while I was here.” He laughed as Bucky turned his head away from Anastasia before she could grab his bun.

“Didn’t expect the baby, did you?” Bucky laughed as he grabbed one of the plates to help you out before starting a bottle for his daughter.

“Not one bit.” Steve laughed as you passed him his plate and grabbed silverware for everyone. “But then again you two have been full of surprises in the last year.”

“We gotta keep life interesting, Stevie. I’ve been around long enough to know that.”

“Million years really is a long time.” Bucky teased as the three of you sat down at the table to eat.

“Shut up!” You laughed as he laid Anastasia across his arm and his lap and gave her her bottle before you went back to trying her on soft solid food again. He propped it on his chest and used his elbow to keep it upright so that he could still eat and make up for the time he spent away from home that day.

“I’d still love you even if you were as old as the dinosaurs.” He cooed with a smile as you cut his chicken just to make it easier for him to multitask.

“Guys, you’re gunna make me sick before I can even enjoy this meal.” Steve joked as he twirled some pasta around his fork.

“You’ll be fine.” Bucky said around a mouthful of fettuccini.

“So what’s going on in New York?” You asked with a glance over at your friend. “Do you have any juicy gossip for us?”

“Well.” Steve said as he chewed. “Not really. Teams good. We had a mission a couple weeks ago that was a pointless waste of time. Some idiot tried to release anthrax bombs in Central Park and apparently that now requires the Avengers to step in.” He rolled his eyes and sighed with a shake of his head. “Hence the reason I’m here talking to T’Challa. I’m trying to get some semblance of balance to these Accords which is proving to be difficult as expected.”

“How’s Tony?” Bucky inquired with a glance over at you.

“Tony’s… well, Tony. He and Pepper got engaged.”

“‘bout time.” You mumbled as you twirled your fork on your plate. “Is he… has he said anything about me?” You looked up at Steve through your lashes as he shook his head subtly.

“Nothing good nor bad. No one wants to bring either of you up.” You nodded as took a bite of your food to avoid inquiring about the next person but Steve answered the unspoken question anyways. “Natasha’s back. She just showed up about two months ago without a word of explanation of where she had been…”

“Good for her.” Bucky said curtly; still harboring a grudge for your ex.

“How’s Wanda?” You ask to change the sensitive subject. Steve nodded and swallowed his bite.

“She’s good. I think Vision is talking about proposing but I’m not entirely sure.”

“Awe, good.” You said with a genuine smile. “Those two are so good for each other.”

“Yea, yea they are.” Steve agreed with a nod. He could feel the slight layer of tension building in the room and quickly changed the subject to prevent an argument over Natasha. “So tell me more about my niece.”

——

“She’s asleep.” Bucky sighed as he closed the nursery door quietly behind him and trudged toward the couch you had flopped down on after saying goodbye to Steve. With a groan, he laid down on the couch practically on top of you and wrapped his arms around your waist. “Finally.” 

“I think she’s teething.” You said as you ran your metal fingers through his hair and pulled out the hair tie. “That’s what the book suggested. She was fussy for a couple days but she wouldn’t let me near her mouth to check.” He nodded against your stomach and buried his face in your shirt. 

“Did you put those squishy things in the freezer?”

“Yes, James. I can mother, thank you.” You teased as you rolled your head on the arm of the couch to look at him. 

“You sure? I still question if I can father, properly.” You giggled with him and laced your fingers together on his back.

“I think we’re doing just fine.” He said with a smile as he looked up at you. “We’re in this together, remember?” You nodded your head as he adjusted his head on your stomach with a content sigh. You let your eyes fall closed, just content on existing in that peaceful moment with your husband. You could feel his fingers making tiny, tight patterns on your back under your loose fitting shirt and moving at a glacial pace up your spine. There was no rush and no urgency, there was just love. 

A knock on your front door caused both of you to stiffen and sigh at your ruined moment. Bucky pushed himself up off your chest and grabbed the gun from the couch cushions. You got up as well and purposely moved yourself between the front door and the nursery. With a glance over his shoulder at you, he turned off the alarm and unlocked the doors.

His whole body tensed as he quickly shove his foot against the back of the door and pointed his gun at whoever was on the other side. You instantly backed up to the nursery door and yanked off your shirt so that you would have better movement when you needed it. You tried to make your five foot six, thankfully muscular body as big as you could in the doorway and wished that you had put a weapon next to the door frame like you had wanted to.

“The fuck are you doing here?” Bucky demanded with more animosity and venom in his voice then you had ever heard before. Which meant one of two things; both of which you were not ready to face.

“Can I talk to her?” Natasha asked softly with tears obvious in her tone.

“Shut the door.” You said from your place.

“You need to leave, now.” Bucky growled.

“Please, I just need to see her!”

“You don’t need to do shit!” Bucky snapped back. “Leave, Natasha.”

“Please.” She begged as Anastasia started to fuss behind you. “Please, I just need to apologize.”

“You have no place to say sorry to me.” You snapped as you stormed away from the nursery door. You put your hand on Bucky shoulder and moved him back a step to look at the partially unrecognizable blonde in front of you. “You’re not welcome here.”

“My star…” She tried but you grabbed your gun from Bucky and cocked it harshly.

“No!” You shouted, which effectively woke your daughter up. “You stood there, Natasha. You just stood there when I needed you the most. You stood there and shook your head. You didn’t even try to defend the woman you supposedly loved as I was thrown from my home. I lost everything! My family, my security, my sanity. All of it was gone and Bucky was the only person that stood up to protect me. Steve did what he could but that wasn’t his responsibility; it was yours. And you- did- nothing!”

“(Y/N)…” She tried as tears fell from her eyes. You heard Bucky growl behind you as he turned to go to the nursery for Anastasia and you shook your head at your ex. 

“No, Nat. I don’t want to hear it. Because even though I left, you still did nothing. Sure, you tried to hunt me down but, as you quickly realized, I won’t be found if I don’t wanna be. So that was a waste of time. Let me ask you this. Have you even bother to talk to Tony about me once? Did you try even one time to get him to see that I am not that monster anymore? Or did you just play victim because you choose to literally turn your back on your girlfriend and she was taken from your life like you promised would never happen? I don’t even need an answer from you because I already know it. You played the victim. I expected more from you Natalia. So much more. Especially after you fought so hard for Clint, who you have said you didn’t love as much as me, to get him back into your arms when Loki had him try to murder you.”

“Baby…”

“Go to hell, Natasha. I want nothing to do with you. Stay away from me, stay away from my family, stay the fuck away from Wakanda. Go do you, you heartless shrew because you sure as fuck aren’t doing me ever again.” Without another word, you slammed the front door closed and turned the locks as fast as your fingers would go. Once the alarm was reset, you set your gun down and followed your daughters screaming to the back bedroom. 

“She gone?” Bucky snapped as he bounced Anastasia in his arms.

“She’s gone.” You said with a nod as you locked the secondary door in your room and sent out a silent thanks for Shuri making your house impenetrable once the alarm was set. “Come here, angel.” You carefully took Anastasia from Bucky and walked over to the bed with her while Bucky started to pace.

“How’d she even find us?” He asked angrily as he yanked off his work shirt and chucked it across the room toward the laundry hamper. “Who the fuck does she think she is?”

“She’s gone, Bucky.” You said softly as you rubbed your daughter’s back and laid her out on your sports bra covered chest.

“She has no right.” He snapped as he continued to get undressed. “No right to just show up here like that.” You nodded in agreement as you tried to check Anastasia’s mouth again since she was awake. “Who does she think she is?”

“I don’t know, baby.” You said evenly as you forced yourself to keep your anger at bay and you absolutely felt one of her teeth near the surface of Anastasia’s bottom gums. “She’s teething.” Bucky glanced over at you and did a double take as your daughter grabbed your hand almost to hold the soothing metal in place. He climbed on the bed slowly as Anastasia’s crying turned into hiccups. 

“Oh, baby girl.” He said sadly as he leaned against the headboard so that he was right in front of her. “You’re OK, sweetheart.” She hiccuped again as he reached up to brush his hand over the back of her head.

“We’re in for a world of fun.” You said softly as she started to chew on your finger. He nodded as her eyes started to slowly drift closed again.

“We’ll figure it out.” He said as he helped get the pair of you under the blankets. “We always do.” You nodded in agreement as he kissed Anastasia’s forehead and laid back against his pillow.

“Think she’ll tell Tony we’re here?” You asked as he grabbed the padded co-sleeper from under the bed. 

“Probably.” He said as he laid the sleeper down between you knowing neither of you would sleep comfortably that night if she wasn’t in the room with you. “We’re safe here, though. Tony can’t get into Wakanda without T’Challa knowing about it anyways…”

“Nat did.” You said as you brushed your fingertips down Anastasia’s back so she would fall back to sleep.

“Yea, well now we’re prepared.” He said a little harshly.  
“OK.” You said as you looked over at him. “OK…”

“Sorry, baby.” He said as he ran his fingers through his hair with a sigh. “She just… she makes me so mad.”

“I know, baby.” You agreed as you carefully pulled your hand back and laid your daughter down in her sleeper. “But we’re better than her now, right? We’re parents now. We can’t stoop down to her level.” 

“Yea.” He said with small smile as he laid down next to the other little lady that stole his heart. “Yea, you’re right.”

“I’m always right, James.” You giggled as you got up to wash your face and get ready for bed. “That’s why you married me.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the night Natasha showed up, you started to live in fear. Every time you stepped outside with Anastasia, you carried an unnecessary amounts of weapons on your person and constantly kept your head on a swivel. After two weeks of jumping at every little thing, the Wolf came back and began to taunt the safety of you and more specifically, your baby girl. And at that point, you locked yourself and Anastasia in your apartment and had your weekly groceries delivered by a teenage boy that lived in your building.

Bucky wanted to protest your seclusion but he was equally as scared for the two loves of his life. He convinced you once about a month after Nat showed up to leave the house just to head up to a restaurant on the corner. He barely made it long enough to order the food to go and rush you back home with a mild case of whiplash. He knew you were at least safe in your home, so after that failed attempt to be social, he looked the other way about you staying home all the time.

Anastasia was growing like a weed. One day she was needing help to sit up on your lap or on the floor and the next thing you knew, she was seven months old, crawling across the wood floors as fast as her chubby arms and legs could carry her, and practicing her standing as long as you held on to her sides. You were beyond ecstatic that her first word was ‘mama’, which Bucky wasn’t a huge fan of, but she didn’t disappoint for long because ‘dada’ came about a week later followed by ‘ba.’ And thus began the part of her life where she would follow you around after you while you cleaned, babbling ‘mama dada’ for hours over the sounds of her knees and palms clomping on the floors.

“She does this all day?” Bucky asked as he helped put away the lunch leftovers on one of his Tuesdays off. You smirked and nodded as you wiped down your kitchen counters while Anastasia sat right next to your legs on the floor repeating your name with the occasional ‘dada’ mixed in as she chewed on a frozen strawberry in a mesh pacifier.

“Every day. We’re getting a lot better at separating our names though.” He laughed as he walked over and looked down at her with his hands on his hips.

“What are you doing?” He said playfully as she looked up at him with a smile.

“Ma dada… da mama!” She said as she reached for him with one arm, not willing to pull the fruit pacifier from her mouth.

“That’s progress.” You laughed as Bucky picked her up and tossed her in the air a couple inches.

“I still can’t believe she’s ours.” He said as walked over and sat down on the couch with her. “I also can’t believe how fast she’s grown.”

“I know.” You sighed with a nod as you hung your rag over the middle of the sinks. “I just want it to stop already. Make her stay cute forever.”

“Yea, because both of us wanna change diapers for the rest of eternity.” He laughed as you flopped down on the couch for a break before you went back to doing laundry. You rested your elbow on the armrest and propped your head on your fist as you watched your daughter ‘walk’ up Bucky’s thighs and stomach while she continued to chew on her strawberry. 

“We need to leave Wakanda.” You said softly. Your husband slowly nodded his head in agreement.

“I’ve been thinking the same thing.” Tears welled in your eyes as the pair of you just watched your daughter with more love than either of you knew was possible. She walked her way up his chest so that her little feet were on his face and squealed in joy when he playfully pretended to eat her toes.

“Where should we go?” You whispered, not trusting your voice any louder.

“We can stay in Africa for a while.” He suggested with a glance over at you as he held his daughter over his thighs again. “Head south until we hit the end of the continent then try to catch a ride over to Asia. Head toward Australia. We’ll just keep moving.” You nodded your head and looked over at him as a few tears fell from your eyes. “We’re gunna be OK, baby girl. We know how to survive on the run. And we’ll just be more hyper-vigilant with Anastasia.”

“OK.” You whispered as you pushed across the couch to rest your head on his shoulder. “I’ll call up to Okoye and we’ll leave tonight?” He nodded his head as he turned to kiss the top of your head.

“We’ll pack as light as we can with her when she goes down for a nap. Get out after dark.” You nodded your head and sighed as you got up off the couch.

“I’ll get the laundry finished and make that call.” You heard him mumble ‘alright’ as he took the empty pacifier from Anastasia before she could throw it.

“Come on, pumpkin. Nap time.”

——

“Our clothes, her clothes, bottles, formula, baby food…” You said to yourself as you went through the two, overflowing backpack duffle bags on your bed. “… toys, bathroom bags, pacifiers, blankets.”

“We can strap this to your backpack.” Bucky said as he tossed the padded sleeper on the bed and grabbed the baby carrier from under the bed as well. “The play pen is a little too big to carry with us.”

“True.” You said as you grabbed the ball of twine and the sleeper off the bed. “Did you empty out every drawer on the changing table into the diaper bag?”

“And the extra stuff in the closet.” He said with a nod. “You got the new load of groceries in there?” You nodded your head as you checked the weight of both backpacks to make sure Bucky’s wasn’t too heavy.

“I think we should bring the stroller.” You said as you set his backpack aside, deeming it full enough. “I think we’ll regret it more if we don’t.”

“It’d make carrying the car seat easier. We could fill the bottom up with more stuff…”

“It would make carrying bottles of water easier.” You agreed. You grabbed the Ziplock bag of baby medicines, sunscreen, and other necessities for Anastasia and threw them in the last bit of space in your bag. “These are both done.” He nodded his head, acknowledging that he heard what you said as he pulled the old SIM cards from your cell phones and grabbed new ones and a pair of burner phones from your bedside table drawer. He pulled weapon after weapon from the drawer as you put everything from the room out in the hall.

“You gunna carry her first?” He asked as you came back in and started to load your old Winter Wolf cargo pants with guns and knives.

“Yea, I got her.” You said as you checked the gun you would keep on your hip to make sure it was fully loaded and the safety was on. You put it in your holder and made sure that it was far enough back that there was no way your daughter could reach it before grabbing the carrier off the bed. You followed Bucky out to the living room to load up anything else you could fit in the stroller; a case of water, some laundry soap you otherwise would have had to leave behind, and a few more of her favorite toys, and took one final look around your apartment for anything else you could possibly need.

“We have all the cash?” You asked as you headed toward the nursery to grab your daughter to leave.

“Yea, it’s all in the diaper bag.” He said as he put his backpack and the diaper bag on and grabbed the carseat to put in the front of the stroller. You nodded, despite the fact that he couldn’t see you as you carefully picked your sleeping daughter up from her crib and put her in the baby carrier. You made sure to grab her bedtime blanket and her favorite stuffed bunny rabbit before heading out of the room to get your own backpack.

“You got everything?” He asked softly as he helped you put the backpack on so you didn’t jostle Anastasia too much.

“Anything we forgot, we can replace.” You responded as you tucked the blanket and bunny into the carseat. “Oh, grab the fold up booster seat.” You said as you pointed to the chair in the corner by the dinner table. You pushed the stroller to the door as he stuck the seat across the top and added the two bottles of water for you to the cup holders.

“Alright.” Bucky said as he looked back around your apartment while you shut off the alarm and unlocked the door. “Bye first house.” You couldn’t bring yourself to turn around and look back at it as you pulled open the door.

“Let’s just go, baby.” You forced yourself not to tear up as you headed down the hall to the elevator. 

“It’s alright, (Y/N).” Your husband said as he rubbed your shoulder with a small smile on his face. “We’re gunna be just fine. We can handle this.” You took a deep breath as the elevator opened on the ground floor and nodded.

“Yep. We’re…”

“Running away with a baby?” A voice asked from the shadows that made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. You whipped your gun out at lighting speed and turned around as Tony stepped out of the shadows. “Do you really think that’s the best parenting choice there.”

“Back up.” Bucky growled as he moved between you and Tony with his gun pointed at the man as well. “Baby, go.”

“No, no.” Tony said as he took a step closer with his hands raised. He instantly took two steps back as both you and Bucky cocked your guns and flipped off the safeties. “Look, I know you’re both a little jaded here…”

“A little?” You asked as your eyes darted around the street; catching Steve and Wanda hiding in the shadows in the alley across from you, Vision a block behind you behind a car, Clint on the roof across from you… and Natasha peeking out from the alley behind Tony. 

“Wonder why…” Bucky growled.

“Yea, you have the right to be mad. I was an asshole. Plain and simple. But I was wrong. And I’m man enough to admit that. So if you wanna hide out, go ahead. You wanna raise your kid in fear here in Wakanda… yea, I know everything.” Tony said as you shared a side eyed glance with Bucky. “You wanna stay here, go ahead. T’Challa said that was fine by him. You wanna come back to the towers and feel safe, you can do that, too.” You forced yourself to keep your face unreadable as you searched Tony’s eyes.

“I’ll stay away.” Natasha said softly. “I won’t come near any of you. Just please. Please come home where you belong.”

“She’d be safe.” Bucky whispered in Xhosa without taking his eyes off Tony or Natasha as you watched the other Avengers. “Both of you.”

“Is it worth dealing with the other half of the problem?” You asked with a side look over at him.

“We’d be safe.” He repeated. “And we wouldn’t have to keep running.” You sighed, knowing that he was right and that dealing with Natasha was worth guaranteeing that the voices didn’t come back and that Anastasia would be safe forever.

“Come on, guys.” Steve called out as he took a few steps forward. “Do it for my niece.” You looked over at Bucky, who you knew wanted to go home and not have to work every day even if he wouldn’t admit it, and sighed.

“Fine.” You breathed as you flipped on the safety and ejected the bullet in the chamber of your gun. You could hear the subtle sigh of relief from your husband as he put his gun up while the other members of the team all stood down.

“You stay away from them.” Bucky growled as he pointed at Natasha and put the diaper bag on the stroller. She nodded and took a few steps back as Steve came over to say hi to Anastasia.

“I’m guessing you still have stuff upstairs?” He asked as he brushed his fingers over the top of her head.

“We packed as light as possible so yea.” You said with a nod. 

“Alright then. Steve, get them to the jet. We’ll get the rest…”

“I’ll go up with you.” Bucky said as he pulled off his backpack and passed it to Steve. “We can just pile everything that’s left in the crib.”

“Leave the furniture and the dishes behind and put a note on the woman across the hall’s door that she can help herself to whatever is left over as a thanks for her son getting our groceries.” You told him as Steve took off your backpack for you. He nodded his head and headed back toward your apartment building as Steve put his hand on your back.

“Let’s go home, (Y/N).” He said with a smile as he lead you behind Natasha to the quinjet that was parked on the palace jet pad.

“I just hope it’s not the worst decision we’ve ever made.” You muttered as you stared daggers into Natasha’s back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Jesus, this place is not safe enough for a baby.” You said more to yourself than anything as you and Wanda followed Anastasia around like worried hens and continuously grabbed things out of her hands and off the ground so she wouldn’t put them in her mouth and choke on them. Your baby girl just laughed as she crawled happily around the living room. Wanda nodded in agreement as she lifted a house plant up off the ground as Anastasia reached up for it.

“Tony’s working on it.” She said with a small smile as Anastasia simply crawled on toward the open kitchen where Bucky was getting her lunch ready. “Hey, we’re really sorry…”

“It wasn’t you.” You said with a shake of your head as you put a few buttons that had been ripped off a shirt, a couple pieces of stale popcorn from under the coffee table, and a pen cap on the breakfast bar. “It’s no one’s fault.” She nodded again as she moved around you to intercept Anastasia from the other side of the breakfast bar as you followed her past your husband.

“So, I’m just gunna go ahead and say it.” Bucky said as you stole a few of the blueberries he was going to mash up for baby food. “It’s super awkward that we’re back.”

“No…” Wanda tried as Anastasia crawled under the dining room table and sat down to take a break.

“It is, isn’t it.” You agreed as you leaned on the edge of the bar to wait and make sure that your daughter didn’t get into anything else. “Everyone feels guilty that they didn’t say anything sooner, and now that we’re married and have a kid, they feel even worse that they didn’t say anything sooner. No offense.” You said with a glance at Wanda. 

“Just FYI, we don’t hold a grudge against anyone. Well… I hold a grudge against one person and I know Bucky does too. But hell, I’m not even mad at Tony. He did what he felt was right. Tony needed to protect himself and the rest of the team from a perceived threat no matter who it was or how valid it was. At the end of the day, we would have done the same thing. If you guys had attacked us in Wakanda, no matter how much we love you, we’re gunna protect each other and our daughter first. It’s human nature to protect the ones you love. But we’re not mad. We don’t blame you. Hell, we could even thank all of you for not standing up for me because if it wasn’t for that, we wouldn’t have Anastasia.”

“I second that.” Bucky said as he put an assortment of fruits in the baby food masher. “So just relax, we’re back. We like that we’re not on the run and looking over our shoulder. I love that I don’t have to go to work every day and I can spend more time with my girls. I like that we have our friends back.” He shrugged as he grabbed one of the baby spoons from the plastic bag on the counter that you hadn’t found a place for yet and a bib from the end of the bar. 

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Wanda. Trust me, we’ve got much bigger issues to deal with. Like making sure this one doesn’t die every single moment of the day. Which is a hard enough job without adding worrying about the past. It’s done, it over, all is forgiven. You want yummy’s?” He asked as he sat down on the floor next to where you were standing and showed Anastasia the bowl in his hands. She ‘mmm’ed’ and quickly crawled over to get her lunch with a smile.

“OK.” Wanda said with a nod as she smiled down at Anastasia while Bucky put his legs around her in an ‘o’ shape to keep her contained in one area. “OK, you’re right.” 

“We try.” You said with a shrug. “Trust me. Stick around this little girl long enough and you’ll see that half the things you though were major in your life just aren’t worth fussing about anymore. Buck, will you just put the bib on her and not try to use it as a napkin?” You scolded.

“Can you quit taking the fun out of my life?” He said back with a roll of his eyes as he tried to wipe off Anastasia’s face with the bib, which she was not a fan of. She whined at him and moved away so Bucky just gave up and put the bib on her to protect the pink onesie she had on.

“Told you so.” You said as you pushed off the counter to make the rest of the baby food for the week.

“Can I?” Wanda asked as she crouched down next to Bucky.

“Go for it.” He said as he passed off the bowl and the spoon but stayed where he was so Anastasia wouldn’t scamper off. Wanda smiled and started to coo in Sokovian as she sat down on the floor. Anastasia looked over at her in awe, waved her hands as if she was going to clap, and scooted on her butt up to Bucky’s leg to get closer to her.

“Do the hand thing. She’ll really love you then. She loves the noises my arm makes.” You said as you scooted the stuff down to the end of the counter to watch.

“Like this?” Wanda cooed as she used her powers to feed Anastasia. Your daughter’s eyes went wide as saucers and you could see the internal battle of whether of being to stunned to eat and being too hungry not to. You giggled and nodded as Steve and Clint came in to the kitchen to grab waters after their training session that morning.

“Come watch.” You practically whispered as you waved the two of them over with a smile. “Wanda’s confusing my kid.”

“I’m being a good aunt.” She giggled as she continued to use her powers to feed Anastasia.

“Well that’s just too cute.” Steve said with a smile as Anastasia held on to Bucky’s jeans and leaned forward as far as she could without falling over to get to Wanda. You nodded in agreement and reached your arm out instinctively when she leaned a little too far forward and nearly fell but Bucky put his hand on her stomach (and the missed food on her bib) to keep her upright.

“Lovely.” He chuckled as you turned back to finish putting baby food away with a smile. 

“You guys are gunna have to get used to getting messy when you’re with Anastasia. She has zero regard for her or your personal hygiene. She drools on you, throws food at you, poops and pees on you, and every once in a while, she’ll throw up on you if she eats too much too fast. Am I forgetting anything, baby?” You asked as you glanced over the side of the counter.

“You kinda cover every thing when you say bodily fluids and food.” He agreed with a glance up at you and Clint. “Babies are messy and gross.”

“Then why keep it?” Clint asked with a small smile and a hint of sarcasm in his tone which was more than you had gotten out of him since Natasha left him for you.

“Because it calls me mama and it melts my heart when it does.” You replied with a fond smile as you glanced over at him. “You’ll fall in love with her, I promise.” He pursed out his bottom lip and shrugged as he turned and walked away.

“Maybe.”

——

“Little one, you gotta keep your hands back.” You said softly as you and Anastasia sat on the couch in the living room at three in the morning the day you got back to the tower since your child was still on Wakanda time. Your daughter completely ignored you as she pulled on the string of the blanket you had started almost two years prior and were finishing. You simply smiled and knit at a glacial speed as she continued to put her hands in the way of the string and knitting needles. It didn’t take long before the nearly soundless patter of footsteps caught your attention over the radio show playing beside you. You’d recognize them anywhere and your whole body stiffened.

“(Y/N)?” You shook your head in the glow of the lamp behind the couch.

“Fuck off, Natasha.” Your ex sighed as she came around the couch from her room and sat down in a chair across the living room from you; sneaking around behind Bucky’s back since he was still asleep at the moment. Her blood shot, red rimmed eyes looked at you and the wide awake little girl in your lap for a moment before you hid Anastasia behind the blanket you were making.

“I couldn’t move.” Natasha said as your daughter leaned back into your chest and yanked the string hard. “I got scared…”

“I don’t give a fuck.” You said as you finally looked over at her. “I don’t. Because I honestly can’t get my head up my ass far enough to see your point of view in this situation.”

“Baby…” You shook your head as Anastasia started to fuss in your lap because you had stopped entertaining her.

“I don’t care, Natalia.” You repeated as you held on to your seven month old as she turned in your lap and grabbed your long hair. You hissed and dropped your knitting as she screeched for dada.

“She’s beautiful.” Nat tried as you got your child to release her death grip on your hair.

“Don’t!” You snapped as you twisted your hair and shoved it down the back of your sleep shirt so Anastasia wouldn’t get it again. You moved the blanket back into her reach, and resolved that you were probably going to have to redo half of it because of her. “You know what I don’t get? I can’t comprehend why you didn’t move.” Natasha opened her mouth to answer and you growled viciously at her. “Shut up! I’m talking now!” She nodded her head, and tucked her legs up on the chair as you handed Anastasia a stuffed baby doll to play with instead of your knitting. “I get it, I was a fucking monster. I get it, it’s scary as hell to stare into the dead eyes of the face of HYDRA. I get it… and yet Bucky was able to differentiate between the two people. Bucky didn’t have an issue standing up to Tony for the woman he loved. Bucky showed no fear of the person I was. But you…?

You just stood there. You didn’t turn around to look at the tears in my eyes. You didn’t turn around to look at heartbreak in my soul. You just chose to protect your status. I get it. You have so much at stake in this new life you had built for yourself. In this new heartless personality you had created. The personality where you use people like me and Clint for your own personal gain with zero regard for our feelings.” You scoffed and shook your head as you helped your wiggly daughter down to the ground and held on to her hands as she babbled away. “We were just pawns in your fucked up game, Natalia. But I’m out. Check mate, signed, sealed, delivered. I loved you with everything I had and you shit on that when you didn’t turn around.” You shook your head as you tucked your knitting and Anastasia’s doll under your arm and picked your daughter up. 

“I hope your choice made you happy, Natalia. I really do. But you can absolutely take your apology and shove it up your ass because it means nothing to me anymore. I want nothing to do with this person you’ve become and I don’t want your toxic presence around my daughter. I’ll work with you in missions and that’s it. But if you come near me again with your bullshit, I will leave. And you won’t fucking find me this time, I promise you that.” With a kiss to your daughter’s temple, you turned on your heel to head back to your room to let your daughter wake up your husband instead.

“I’m sorry, my star.” Natasha whispered as you headed down the hall, finally answering your daughter’s babbled story. Bucky was sitting up in bed as you walked into your bedroom, looking more pissed off than ever.

“Did you tell her to get fucked?” He asked as he held his hands up toward his daughter.

“In the most polite way possible.” You said as you passed off your kid. “We’re gunna need to come up with a way to get this one on New York time.”

“Agreed.” Bucky said with a nod and a yawn as he stood Anastasia up on the bed in front of him so she could bounce her little heart out until you got a real bouncer. “But then again, we all need to get on New York time.”

“Agreed.” You sighed as you sat down on the bed and spread your blanket out on your lap since you were up for the day.

“If she comes near you again…” Bucky threatened as he got up to grab some toys from the duffle bag in the corner you hadn’t unpacked yet.

“She won’t.” You said with a glance over at him. “She’s not that stupid.”


End file.
